


Mysteria

by AllRose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 03:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8604568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllRose/pseuds/AllRose
Summary: Lily Evans finds that life post-Hogwarts isn't quite what she hoped it would be. Working on a secret mission in the Department of Mysteries, she struggles to survive on her own. Plus, people keep trying to kill her, and she isn't really sure why.





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Lily Evans really missed Hogwarts. On days like this, she missed the camaraderie of her classmates, a castle to explore and sprawling grounds to ramble around. She missed the distraction always having people there, around you. It was difficult to get privacy in Hogwarts, but these days all she had was solitude.

Her field assignment had taken her out of the Order meetings which had been her last contact with the world. At the time, she had been happy to leave the awkwardness and tension that pervaded any room which held her and James Potter, but recently she had begun to miss those small moments which had provided some relief from the War.

Lily pulled her hair back as she walked, boots splashing through the rain. The morning was grey and drizzling. She had taken her flat close to the Ministry so that she could walk to work in the mornings, but it had turned out to be one of the worst summers in living memory and now that the days were getting shorter she found herself walking to and from work under darkening skies.

The Main Atrium was bustling busy as always. Usually Lily liked to arrive early for work. The conveniences of magic and floo powder ensured that everyone arrived for work in the two minutes before nine o'clock, clogging up the Atrium and causing pandemonium. Lily found that the more solitary a life she lived, the less she could cope with large crowds. She comforted herself with the assurance that it was safer for her to stay out of sight. In order to walk to work she had to wear Muggle clothing and it suited her usually to wear them at her work as well. Nobody in the Department of Mysteries paid attention to something as small as clothing anyway, not when they were brooding over the nature of life, love, and knowledge. But she always attracted quite a bit of attention when she went to get lunch or when entering and leaving through the main Atrium.

There were so many times that she wondered why she was on this assignment. An internship in the Department of Mysteries was a dangerous job, it was true, and Unspeakables were always being attacked and tortured for information. Dumbledore had told her that she needed to report on the level of infiltration in the Ministry, but she spent all her time holed up in Mysteries. She could not think of a worse person to infiltrate the Wizarding world than a working-class Muggleborn. She did, however, understand the need to guard the Department of Mysteries. Twice she had felt the Imperius Curse take hold of her, the sweet soothing voices urging her to let them in, just let go, _it's fine_. With great difficulty she had always managed to shake them off, but she watched her co-workers sharply for signs of the curse. The Department had issued Occlumency lessons to every unspeakable on appointment and Lily firmly believed that these had helped her to defend herself against the Imperius.

She took the empty lift down to Mysteries. The slick stone walls reminded her of Hogwarts Castle and despite the dim light and dampness she found it quite comforting. There was something about old magic and stones, she mused. They went together so well.

The Love Rooms were warm and pulsing. She hurried past the locked door that housed the True Love Room but felt the little pulse of energy it sent through her. This was her favourite part of the day, when the magic in the rooms soaked into her skin and warmed her heart. She pulled off her coat and started work. The Love Rooms contained huge fountains of love potions, and her skills at potion-making allowed her to progress to making the most difficult of potions after only a year working there. It was taxing work, and she passed the morning immersed in her batch of Amortentia. By late afternoon, however, her mind had started to wander. Her colleagues were all dour, gloomy people. When she had started this work, she had alienated and bored by their attitudes, but then again when she started work she had friends, a boyfriend. She would laugh at James' imitations of her supervisor Deckley, with his plodding step and dour expression. But she had found much respect for her colleagues in the year she had worked there, and she could now work with them comfortably.

By the time that five o'clock came around she was thinking about nothing but dinner and a glass of wine. She hurried out of the office with her head bowed low and her arms braced herself around her. The energy in the room diminished as she passed. This was the worst part of her day, the moment when she was sapped of all the love she had felt so strongly that morning. She felt utterly drained as she leant on the wall for support. Fumbling around in her pockets, she found her daily square of chocolate and popped it into her mouth. It gave her the strength to continue on her way home.

The Atrium was busier than she expected. She noticed a lot of Aurors milling around, queuing for fires, and suspected that there must have been an attack somewhere. This was the kind of thing Dumbledore would probably want her to investigate, she thought. Then again, he had enough of the Auror Department in the Order that there couldn't possibly be a need for her to blow her cover by asking questions.

She dodged a former classmate, a large Ravenclaw who raised a surprised eyebrow at her jeans and red jacket as a hand circled her wrist and tugged.

"Lily."

It wasn't fair, Lily often thought, that she could be doing something completely mundane and suddenly he would be there, like a sudden gust of wind made flesh. She stared at the grey robes and the Trainee Auror badge pinned to his chest. James Potter looked older, but stronger. His eyes caught hers so unexpectedly that she felt momentarily winded.

"What?" she bit out. It came out so harsher than she had intended.

James looked a little lost for words. He dug his hands into his pockets. "I don't know. I suppose I just…wanted to say hello."

"Oh," she said softly.

"You haven't been to any meetings recently." He dropped his voice at the mention of the Order.

"I'm on assignment," she said quietly. She wondered if he could tell that she was lying.

"I know," he shrugged. "So is Moony. He's infiltrated his…kind. Haven't heard anything of him in six weeks."

"Dumbledore mentioned." She paused awkwardly. "How is everyone?"

"Alright, I s'pose. Considering."

"Yeah," she said, softly. "Considering."

"We're having a bit of a get-together Sunday," he hedged. "For the McKinnon's anniversary. At HQ. You should come." He took a deep breath. "You shouldn't feel like you can't come because we broke up."

"Maybe," she sighed. Merlin, did he have to catch her now? With all of the love in the world drained out of her less than ten minutes ago?

James stared at her searchingly. She noticed the circles under his eyes and the two-day stubble around his jawline.

"You're starting to look like one," he said quietly. "An Unspeakable. You've got that same expression."

She couldn't help it; she felt her blood boil a little. She opened her mouth to retort that he didn't know what he was talking about, but the words wouldn't come. The Fidelius Charm was unforgiving when it came to a single word about her job, something which she knew James couldn't understand.

He tilted his head to the side to try to read her eyes. "You'd tell someone though, right? If you weren't…fine?"

She nodded her head mutely and he sighed with frustration. A voice reverberated around the room. "POTTER!"

The pair jumped and turned to look at Mad-Eye Moody clunking towards them. "Have you gone deaf?" he roared. "You're the last one!"

Lily looked around her and noticed that all the Aurors had disappeared.

"Coming!" James called, and turned back to her, leaving Moody grumbling and tapping his wooden leg in impatience. "Try and come, won't you? Everyone's worried about you."

She gave a sad little smile that she hoped would mollify him briefly. He seemed mildly satisfied by that.

"POTTER!"

"I have to…"

"Yeah, er, go on then."

He hesitated for a minute, looking unsure of how to say goodbye. When he had gone on his first Auror mission, she had kissed him hard and begged him to stay safe, but she couldn't do that anymore.

"Try not to die, Potter," she said awkwardly.

"You too," he said seriously, and she remembered how much more dangerous his life was to hers. He fought the bad guys, he saved lives. She brewed fake love in a dungeon all day every day.

James turned sharply on his heel and caught up with Moody, who was berating him with relish. Lily watched until he had disappeared through the fire before heading home herself, for a glass of wine and a long cry.

Lily had no intention of going to the McKinnon's anniversary. She had suffered through the funerals in torture, and she felt that the event was probably only an excuse for James and his friends to get everyone drunk. She had once loved their ability to lift everybody's spirits, but that had been when they were young and naïve. Before they had seen so much carnage and violence.

And of everyone, the McKinnons? After everything that they that been through in trying to save them!

She was deeply glad that Dumbledore summoned her for a meeting that Saturday night. She arrived at the Shrieking Shack five minutes early, but he was already waiting for her. It always startled Lily that Dumbledore could make even the ratty setting of the Shack look almost regal. It had been many months since she had last seen him; her Patronus usually sufficed as a messenger if anything interesting occurred.

"Miss Evans," Dumbledore smiled and gestured to a tatty armchair with most of the stuffing ripped out.  
"Please make yourself comfortable."

Lily sat down gingerly at the edge of the armchair and accepted gratefully the cup of tea that glided across the room to her. "How are you, Professor?"

"A little older, but then again who among us can say elsewise." He surveyed her carefully. "I thought, perhaps, Lily, you'd like to have someone to talk to."

"What about?" she asked worriedly. The idea of spilling her guts to her old Headmaster filled her with slowly mounting dread.

"About your mission," he said simply. "I am the only other member of the Order with whom you can freely speak about your daily life."

"There's nothing to say. I brew Amortentia from nine-to-five," she shrugged. "I try to find things out, Professor, I really do, but it's hard to find excuses to leave the Department during work hours and nobody wants to give classified information to a Muggleborn, it-" she stopped when Dumbledore raised his hand.

"I fear you think I brought you here for some manner of reprimand. Let me make it quite clear that I am more than satisfied with your work to date. You have put yourself in considerable danger even in continuing to work in the Ministry of Magic."

"Er…thanks, Professor."

Dumbledore surveyed her over his half-moon spectacles. "You are living alone now."

"I am," she said quietly.

"I am always curious. As a Muggleborn, do you often revert back to the Muggle way of things when left to your own devices?"

"More and more," she admitted. "I find it comforting. I still use magic, of course, but I do like to wait for things to take their own time sometimes. I certainly do things the Muggle way a lot more often than I did when…"

She trailed off awkwardly. She had meant to say when she was staying with James, practically living with James, but she didn't really want to talk about her extramarital cohabitation with Dumbledore. She hoped that he thought she was alluding to her time at Hogwarts. Regardless, he simply smiled gently and nodded.

"And now, Lily, I think we must be going. We have made ourselves fashionably late enough. Mustn't keep anyone waiting. I'm sure Sturgis will be closing the wards soon."

"Sturgis?" she faltered. The current Order of the Phoenix was convening these days in the magically enhanced garden shed on Sturgis Podmore's property. Dumbledore looked at her expectantly, and her protests died weakly in her throat.

"Everyone will be so glad to see you," Dumbledore smiled. He nodded to her, and she sighed a little inwardly. Had she even bothered to brush her hair this morning?

She Apparated, feeling the pull around her naval and hearing the whoosh of air that signaled Dumbledore's Apparition. She dimly wondered if he had waited for her to go first, to make sure she would go. As if she would have defied Dumbledore.

It was a very pretty sight, the old ramshackle garden. The old shed was lit up with candles in the windows, and there were pretty twinkling lights hung around the garden.

" _You're drunk." James throws his arm sloppily over her shoulder, pulling her a little closer. She lets him, bumping a little against his chest._

_It's nice._

" _Am not," she argues, showing him her full glass to prove it._

" _You are." He grins wickedly. "Saintly Lily Evans is totally sloshed. Trollied, pissed as a fart, Tarty."_

" _I'm not tarty!" she proclaims, pretending to act shocked. "I'm wearing jeans."_

" _You are tarty, you tart. Look at you." James tugs on a ringlet. "You've gone and curled your hair and everything. And make-up, who'd have thought?"_

_He presses a sloppy kiss to her neck. It tickles a little, and she giggles. "Shut up, you berk, or I'll never dress up for you again."_

" _As long as it's only for me," he grins, and kisses her. They are interrupted by the appearance of Peter at the door._

" _Prongs!" he squeaks. "You're missing your own party."_

_James smiles a little woozily and kisses her quickly again before leaving, his hands dragging across her neck. "Smashing party, Evans," he murmurs into her hair._

" _Glad you think so, Potter," she murmurs. "Now, go on ahead. I have to sober up and fix my hair."_

" _Leave it like that," he growls. "'Lets everyone know you're mine."_

" _Am I a commodity?" she protests, and shoos him out. He stumbles slightly at the door._

_She sees him move through the hall and into the kitchen. There is only an inch or two of the kitchen that she can see, but she sees James stumbling through with his arms raised in some kind of victory stance, and she hears his friends roar in celebration._

" _He's got a point," the shadows say._

_Lily jumps back, throws her hand to her throat. "Fuck, Marlene! What are you doing?"_

" _Looking for fags," Marlene says. She rubs her right hand through her hair absently. "Dung left some here I think."_

" _How bad are you, searching through everyone's belongings?"_

" _How bad are you, snogging in a bedroom, dressed like a tart!" Marlene shoots back, without much venom._

" _You're one to talk," Lily argues. "You look like a biker."_

" _Screw you."_

_Lily sighs, and the world spins a little. "My fags are in the kitchen."_

" _Too far away."_

_Lily flops onto the bed, feeling a little ill. "I feel a little ill," she tells Marlene. She drops her hand to the mattress and pulls up a pack of Major._

" _How desperate are you?" she asks, and throws the pack to the other girl._

_Marlene grins and tears the pack open. She lies down beside Lily, and lights up._

_Lily watches the smoke rings make circles in the air. The smell of Majors is oddly comforting. She thinks of her dad._

_All around her, the walls thump with the heavy bass of music and the stomping of Peter's dancing. The room is cool and dark, however, and she feels her eyes closing. Marlene's arm is warm and solid pressed into her side, and she drifts off._

" _Lily…Lily…" James' whispers draw her out of her muffled sleep. "Come on."_

" _Marls…" she murmurs groggily._

" _Bugger off," Marlene moans._

_James smiles tipsily at her. His hair is sticking up and his glasses are crooked. Lily thinks he looks very inviting, as she falls into his chest and buries her head under his chin._

_James surveys Marlene skeptically_

" _Leave her," Lily mutters, knowing Marlene's_ _humour_ _when she hadn't had enough sleep. They stumble into a taxi, being far too drunk for Apparation or Floos, and leave Marlene on the bed, gently snoring, eyeliner smeared across her cheek._

_And that is it._

The party was not as loud as Lily expected. In fact, it appeared to be very solemn. Moody informed her, briskly and almost indifferently, that they had lost another member the night before. George Dimmer, a scared, quiet boy Lily remembered after a lot of thought, hiding in the background of their meetings. Nobody really felt like a party anymore, but it is customary enough to group together after these tragedies happen.

She stood by a picture of Marlene's father smiling and waving, and did a very good impression of a wall. People patted her on the shoulder, but she supposed that she didn't look much like chatting. Sirius Black, one of his eyes bruised mauve, had swirled a measure of brandy into her tea and stalked off. She didn't see James, but Peter was there, avoiding her eyes for fear, she assumed, of how he was supposed to act around her.

She spotted Minerva McGonagall, who politely asked her how she was doing. Without an ability to talk about her career, they fumbled for a safe subject. Minerva seemed unwilling to talk about Hogwarts, and Lily about London.

They were both relieved, therefore, when Mundungus Fletcher made his entrance, landing sprawled on the carpet in a drunken stupor.

Lily offered to take him, partly to figure out how on earth he had managed to Apparate in his state, but also to get away from everyone. She brought him to a little bedroom used for those after missions and cleaned him up, swatting away his attempted slobberings and tucking him in when he succumbed to sleep.

"Found yourself a new boyfriend?" she heard a snide voice from the doorway. Sirius was leaning against the doorframe, with his mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. There was something not right about the way he was holding himself, and though she could not tell what it was, Lily knew that somewhere other than his eye was hurting him.

She stood up, feeling offended beyond belief. "Would it matter, Black?" She felt her jaw clenching. "I'm a single woman."

Sirius snorted, and she narrowed her eyes. "What's your problem?" she demanded him.

She could tell he wanted a fight, and she knew that she was a good person from whom to get one. "My problem is you," he stated simply. "In here fussing over a drunken layabout when-"

"When what?" she demanded.

"When James isn't here yet!" he thundered, and it was his choice to call him James that chilled here more than his tone.

"It's barely dark, Black," she tried to reason with him, because really, no-one else seemed to be worried.

"It doesn't matter," Sirius argued. "Once upon a time you would have been worried with me."

"Once upon a time I'd have been by his side," she spat, and to her horror, felt her eyes prick. "He made it quite clear that he didn't want me to worry about him anymore."

She swept passed him with as much dignity as she could, but she felt him grab her arm as she passed. "You could have tried harder."

It was a dirty dig, and they both knew it. When she fought with Black it always went two steps too far. James could fight with him and see, even through the sharp digs, the fear and desperation behind his eyes. Lily never let herself look.

Stonily, she tore her elbow from his grasp and stalked out of the room.

She was no longer in the mood to stand around quietly. She wanted to pace, to storm. She went from room to room, clenching her fists in frustration until she found herself in the main room where everyone was congregated. Ahead of her, she could see James Potter, with a bruised jaw and tired eyes but clearly alive and well.

She glared at his profile until she realised that people were watching her, and then she decided she needed a cigarette.

The poor cigarette hadn't done anything to her, but it paid for her ire by being squeezed, twisted and eventually stamped upon. The smoke was bitter in her lungs, and the acrid smell reminded her of Marlene.

She couldn't leave without paying her respects, especially not after…

Lily went back into the shed, making a beeline for the back room.


	2. 2

* * *

Lily was a smart witch; she had known the risks. The brewing of Amortentia could have so many side effects. Day in, day out, inhaling the essence of what you love most could cause madness in a matter of weeks. An extra pinch of beetle eyes could cause intense hatred where a stir less could cause instant death. Many the wizard had dropped dead after downing a pumpkin juice spiked with love potion because of the reaction between the pumpkins and the peacock feathers if left standing for too long. The real side effect, however, was the emotional drain. Like tennis elbow or carpal tunnel syndrome, brewing the essence of love every day could take it out of a witch.

Had she gone to a Muggle secondary school and learnt about science she would have known the First Law of Thermodynamics: that energy could not be created nor destroyed, it could only be transferred. As a witch, she had an instinctive understanding of the flow of energy. The love from Amortentia had to come from _somewhere,_ even if it was not real love and it could not last.

"The quality of your work has been good for someone so young." Her supervisor, Godfrey Cadurcis, shuffled and rearranged the papers on his desk. "But, I think it is time for something new."

"I like brewing," Lily argued.

Cadurcis regarded her sternly over his spectacles. "I have worked in this department for a long time, Miss Evans. I am well trained in spotting the talents and tipping points of each of my staff."

"I'm not at my tipping point," she protested. "I like my job."

"You are telling me that you aren't increasingly affected by the locked Love Room, that you are not constantly lethargic and uninterested in your daily life? That you do not tremor just a little bit when you work on the more delicate aspects of potion-making?"

Lily flushed but said nothing.

"There is nothing to be ashamed of," he said, almost kindly. "The most accomplished of wizards cannot put so much of themselves into a potion for more than two years. We must decide where to put you. Let's see. I notice the Time Room is in need of some inventory. That should take no more than a month, and then we shall see about moving you on to something that requires a little more _depth_."

Feeling like a complete failure, Lily had resolved to start trying to fulfil her mission to the Order a little better, so she began to eat her lunch in the canteen rather than at her desk. The canteen was large and always busy, the food surprisingly tasteless considering it as made by house elves, and cliquey. At least in Hogwarts, Lily mused, you always had your House table to eat at if you had no friends to sit with. But here, she sat alone. It became ever more obvious to her every time she ventured into the Wizarding public that she was something to be shunned. There were those who shot her dirty looks and fired subtle curses at her back, and there were those who shot her sympathetic smiles but did not dare to talk to her for fear of the same kind of shunning. Without Dumbledore's assistance, she knew that she might not have been able to procure a position in the Ministry of Magic at all, unless she wanted to become an Auror. She didn't though; she had wanted to be a Healer, once upon a time. She had studied all the most basic and some of the more advanced healing spells, practising on Order members after battles and sometimes Remus when he allowed her. She thought of Sirius' black eye and felt a stab of guilt. Sirius had always been one for bravado and dramatics. Without her, he now had the opportunity to show off his battle scars.

Lily ate lunch alone for three days and then went back to eating at her desk.

The Time room was more exciting than the simple potion brewing room she had worked in before, but the work was much more tedious. She spent her days counting Time Turners and magical clocks, categorising them and storing them. She no longer had to pass the Love Room on her way to and from work, which seemed to level out her emotions a little, but without the distraction of complicated and engaging work she found it harder to harder to concentrate. It didn't help that time played tricks in the room, altering her perception so that some days seemed to last for only an hour and others for three times their normal length. It played havoc with her energy and her ability to sleep nights.

Two weeks into her inventory, Lily tried eating in the canteen again, to similar results. She finished her work, bid good evening to her supervisor, and walked home. Later on, she would try to remember that walk in detail. She would remember that it was fresh and clear, that she had felt a little ill after a nasty attempt at lasagna presumably cooked by a house elf who had spent some time in Azkaban. She remembered taking the scenic route, padding down cobbled streets with rustling leaves. She would not remember quite how busy it was, or when her attack could have happened.

An hour after a dinner of beans on toast, she started vomiting a black, inky liquid. Violently. It came upon her so quickly that she could not perform any counter spells or call for help. She didn't even know how to call the Wizarding equivalent of an ambulance. Was it like the Knight bus?

She stumbled to the bathtub and tried to collect the black liquid. With horror, she realised that the black was not black at all but a terribly dark red. She doubled over in pain and felt something lodge in her throat. When she managed to unstick it, she realised with trembling hands that she was holding one of her bones. She was, quite literally, puking her guts up.

For the first time in a long time, Lily began to realise quite how much she had managed to isolate herself. She had no telephone, no Muggle money. Worse, much worse, was that she couldn't even think of someone to call. The Patronus Charm was their go-to method of communication in times like this. Lily sprinted to her wand and tried desperately to conjure up something happy.

This was fifth-year magic, she reminded herself. _You have done this a million times before._

"Esplo Parorrum," she mumbled. "Etspeso Parosum!"

Blood bubbled out her mouth and down her chin.

She closed her eyes as tightly as she could and tried to work it non-verbally. She knew, in the back of her mind, that the Patronus was too powerful a spell to attempt non-verbally at the best of times, and that any message she had to give would have to be spoken aloud, but she reasoned that times of extreme pressure always increased a witch's power and volatility. In the end, the best she could get was a faint mist that she wasn't sure was even truly there.

Another wave of cramping hit her and she ran to the bathtub, this time throwing up what she hoped was one of her less important organs. This wave seemed to be so much worse, she retched and retched until the whole bottom of the bathtub was the same inky black, and something unintelligible in the back of her mind made her lean down and plug the bath, so that it didn't escape down the drain. She rested her head against the cool of the bathtub and wondered how long this would go on for. She could feel sweat dripping into her eyes, could taste the copper and vomit at the back of her throat. Would she die slowly, achingly? Or would she slip out of consciousness near the end? There were already black spots appearing in her peripheral vision, although her heart beat madly, desperately at her breast.

What an embarrassing way to go, she realised. Would the Order recognise her absence from work? She hoped they would at least have the decency to clean up and not make poor Mrs. Baker, the poor little landlady, face this.

"Bugger this," Lily resolved, and pulled herself up.

She stumbled into the bedroom, searching blindly for a spell book that would help her with communication charms, before remembering that they had burned them all in a celebratory, "No more exams!" moment after N.E.W.T.S. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, and almost laughed. Blood dribbling down her chin and front, eyes wild and frantic, hiccoughing up what might have been an ovary. She looked like something out of a horror movie.

She ran to the living room, and staggered a little on the way. She thought about sending up a flare of sparks, but she didn't know if that would be seen. She would have used the Dark Mark, if she had known the spell. She cursed herself for having been Sorted into Gryffindor, for having gone to school and associated herself with a group of stupid, reckless, fun-loving berks who-Remus! Remus wasn't a berk and he would have thought of something, like James and Sirius' mirrors or the map.

Lily rushed to her dresser and began pulling things out frantically. At the back of the shelf was a little jewellery box and she yanked it out, praying and hoping that maybe-Yes!

Lying in the box was a Galleon, a little rusty and sad looking. She pressed it to her palm and felt it heat up, the Protean Charm they had placed on it years ago whirring into action.

"Please," she whispered. "Please. Please, please, please pleasepleasepleaseplease."

The clock on the wall ticked the seconds past and she realised it hadn't worked. He probably didn't have it on him, or had used it as currency by accident. It had been so long ago.

Lily felt her legs buckle as another terrible wave hit her. Up came her stomach. Up came her liver.

She tried frantically to think of a big spell, either illegal or sufficiently showy, that would bring the Ministry to her door, but in the end she couldn't even hold her wand in her shaking hands.

The radio was playing "Jammin'" by Bob Marley as Lily lay on her front and waited to die. Everything around her was red: her hands, her face, her carpet.

She really could not think of a more ignoble death.

She raised her hands weakly and managed to shoot some sparks out the window. She saw them settle in the sky outside and watched them until her eyes unfocused and she lost consciousness.

Lily!

She looked up weakly and saw the gentle face of Gideon Prewett.

"Alright?" Gideon said kindly.

"Gu-chk." Lily tried to speak but realised with no small amount of horror that she seemed to be choking on one long intestine.

Gideon patted her on the head. "Don't worry, poppet. We're getting you to Mungo's."

Lily tried to survey her surroundings. She was still lying in a pool of her own blood and carpet fibers, and she was still expelling most of her internal organs, but at least she wasn't alone. She could hear the reassuring thumping of Mad-Eye Moody in the kitchen, arguing with someone who may have been Fabian Prewett.

"It's one thing to risk splinching when your body isn't inside out, but bloody hell," Moody was saying.

"How else can we get her there," Fabian reasoned. "The intestines are the only thing giving us time. Once she expels her own heart… We've got five minutes, ten tops for the Mediwizards to be able to help her."

She realised slowly Gideon was saying something to her about collecting her organs, but before she could focus he had stood up again. She stared listlessly at the bottom of his Levi jeans and Doc Martins. "Oi, she's awake!" he shouted to someone who seemed to be getting sick in the corner.

Sirius Black returned with him, pale and shaking, and she tried to smile at the sight of him, but it made her choke a little worse. He dropped to his knees and ran a hand through her hair gently. "You're going to be alright," he said, and met her eyes.

She thought that this was a particularly brave thing to do considering that she was splayed out like one of those tiger or polar bear rugs that Muggles had, with her intestines spilling out of her mouth.

The retching restarted in the corner. Sirius looked around and grimaced. "That's Prongs," he said to Lily's forehead. "He prefers you outside in. To be honest I think it's a bit of an improvement."

"Are you ready?" Moody's stump came into her line of vision. Grab a hold of her arm there, and any bits still attached to her. We're going to take the rest of her with us separately. POTTER! Get a grip on yourself!"

Sirius hoisted her up with one arm and with the other gingerly gripped her insides.

James hurried over to them. His eyes were bright and his hands were shaking terribly. He pushed his forehead towards the side of her temple very briefly, breathing heavily. It was a strange comfort to Lily that they both smelled of vomit. He looked like he had a small idea of what she was going through. He released her and wrapped an arm around her waist while Sirius moved his to her shoulders, and Lily felt safe, finally, between these two stupid fools holding up her intestines in front of them like a snake.

They Apparated.

Lily had expected that once she actually got to St. Mungos, her sufferings would be over. She could be quite thick like that, for an intelligent girl.

Firstly, they made her remain conscious, and stopped the retching quite quickly, before she spat out her beating heart. But it transpired that _better out than in_ was not the mot du jour, and that Lily would be forced to choke down her own guts. This presented a lot of problems, one of which was that she kept puking them up again, but eventually they got everything jammed back in there and Lily was permitted to rest, finally.

"They're keeping you until your…bits settle." James gestured to her mid-section. "And then they're going to make sure that everything is working correctly." He sighed heavily, and rubbed his stubbled chin. "You were damned lucky, Evans."

"I don't feel too lucky right now," she grumbled, and he smiled a little.

"You're still breathing, aren't you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Give me a second to check."

"Well at least you didn't spit up your sarcasm."

"Fuck you," she moaned without much conviction.

James didn't respond, and Lily felt the silence settle over them like a warm, slightly scratchy cloak.

James cleared his throat. "So…how's work?"

At Lily's expression he held up his hands in quick surrender.

"Sorry, that was a bad one."

Lily felt a sudden and very painful lump in her throat, and knew that it had nothing to do with the Fidelius Charm and a lot to do with not knowing how to talk to James Potter. She remembered a time when she wanted to talk to him, to talk at him, to shout and moan. She remembered the beginning of their relationship, where the words would bubble out of her freely and unrestrained, and she would often have to stop mid-sentence to catch her breath. James would laugh, and pull her close, and say something devious and manipulative that was designed only to rile her up and have her spluttering into a tirade of explanations and excuses.

Now, she didn't want to talk to him at all.

No, that wasn't it. She couldn't talk to him anymore. Something was different.

"Lily," James started, and then hesitated.

"Yes?"

He looked at her for a long time and then shook his head. "Nothing. I forgot,"

"Must've been a lie," she mumbled reflexively.

"Maybe," he sighed.

The hair on the left side of his face was plastered to his head. His eyes were dark and tired, and he had the distinct posture of someone who had slept in a hospital chair all night. Lily thought it was damned unfair that he had accused her of looking like an Unspeakable when he was starting to look more and more like one as well, even if he wore it a lot better than she did.

"I'm tired," Lily told him, and he didn't need to be told twice. He stood, bones cracking and stretched. He hovered uncomfortably around the bed, unsure of what to do now that he couldn't touch her.

"Someone will be on guard," he told her. "At all time."

"Cool," she said awkwardly, and gave him a little wave. "Thanks. For, er…everything."

"Don't worry about it," he sighed, and left the room.

Sirius Black wasn't a particularly good guard. He might argue, if you told him this, that he had his eyes exactly on his charge, but you would probably argue back that his charge had left the safe area and was now bumming a cigarette from him in the courtyard.

"Menthols!" she delighted. "Have I finally managed to corrupt you?"

Sirius shrugged and lit his own one. "Peter was here earlier. Dunno if he thinks you're still playing a monster, but he chickened out of coming inside. He's coming back later for another try."

"Poor Pete," she sympathised. "He is so squeamish."

Sirius made a grunt that indicated his disapproval.

"And I'm sure his imagination has made it much worse in his head," she reasoned.

"Trust me, Lily," Sirius took a drag of his cigarette. "The human mind cannot create something that awful by itself."

Lily shrugged and lit her next cigarette off of her first. Sirius watched her with an eyebrow raised but said nothing.

"We still haven't heard from Moony," he changed the subject.

"He must be very deep undercover," Lily mused. "I hope it's nothing too dangerous."

"Hmmm."

"What? You still have your suspicions because he didn't answer my distress signal? I knew it was a long shot," she tried to reason with him. "We made those coins in fifth year, and Remus is hardly in the position to hoard money."

Sirius just shrugged. "How are you feeling now?"

"Crampy," she said, and he grimaced. "My tummy's still floating around my chest cavity somewhere."

"We're going to find the people who did this," Sirius said very seriously, "but I need to know, Lily. Was it because of your job or the Order?"

Lily shook her head, her messy bun thwacking against her neck. "I don't know. I'm not doing anything actively-" the words caught in her throat as the Fidelius took control over her.

"I think it would be a good idea if you stopped standing out so much."

"What do you mean?" Lily asked, genuinely confused. "I spend all of my time working or in my flat."

"Lily," Sirius groaned. "You walk around wearing Muggle clothes at a time when Muggle-borns are being attacked left, right and centre."

"Oh please," Lily scoffed.

"I'm serious, Lily!" Sirius said angrily and shut her mouth. He took a few furious drags of the end of his cigarette. "You can't isolate yourself like this all of the time. It was a miracle we even found you. A neighbour calling 999 to complain about perpetual fireworks? It's ridiculous!" He stubbed out his cigarette violently. "Dorcas is looking for a flatmate. You remember Dorcas Meadowes? She was two years above us. She joined a few months ago. You'll like her. And more importantly, you'll have-"

"A watcher? A parole officer?"

"A companion."

"Ah," Lily groaned.

"Jesus, Lily. Just think about it."

"Alright?" Peter stuck his head through the doorway. He visibly relaxed at the lack of tentacles and blood.

"Sit down," Lily motioned.

"I can't stay long," Peter apologised, scooting around the room but not sitting. Instead he placed his hands nervously on the back of the chair.

"You look better than I expected."

"Thanks," she said a little awkwardly. "They patched me up pretty good."

"Prongs said…" he started but trailed off awkwardly.

"It wasn't nice," she admitted, feeling oddly embarrassed.

"He was puking all night!" Peter exclaimed, his voice rising sharply in pitch.

Lily smiled, feeling suddenly tired. These conversations always went the same way. Peter had lapsed into an agitated silence.

"I hate this!" he squeaked.

"Peter," Lily sighed.

"Why does it have to be like this, Lily? If you had a stupid fight, or-"

"But we didn't."

"Why do you have to act so adult about it. Prongs likes to pretend that you just drifted apart but I don't believe that."

"Well it's true," Lily said hotly. "He hated not knowing about my mission, about not knowing every single thought I possessed. I couldn't live like that and neither could he. We grew up, Peter, and we realised it wouldn't work. Why can't you just accept that?"

Peter stared at her, looking a little pale. "The thing is, Lily. The thing is…the thing is I wish you had fought half as hard to save your relationship as you have to kill it."

He stalked out of the room.

Lily stared after him, mouth agape.

"Whoa."

Lily decided to take Sirius' advice to move in with Dorcas Meadowes to a little flat in Dagenham. The world was a little more animated there, and Dorcas was a nice girl. She was fiercely devoted to her mission, which involved hunting out suspicious activity in the Improper Use of Magic Office. It was Dorcas who had flagged Lily's fireworks as suspicious, Dorcas who had put two and two together. Dorcas who had raised the alarm.

They spent a lot of time decorating their flat. They chose which wallpaper would go on the walls, what the furniture should be, what colour the bathtub should be (Lily was a big fan of avocado green). They bought the materials and spent hours on the walls and then…gave up. They tidied the rooms until they were presentable but they quite gave up on the perfect modern home they had idealised.

Mysteries had moved her on from counting Time Turners to counting Magical Watches. The work was mind-numbingly boring but Lily was quite happy to have a job that involved sitting down all day and not rocking her scarred mind or body.

It was nice, she would admit, to have someone there when she went home. Sometimes Dorcas even had dinner ready for her.

Of course, the world would not let her be, not for another while at least. There was still a war, and Lily was still playing absolutely no part in it. She bemoaned this often to Dorcas, to the extent that she could, but Dorcas, like everybody else, could not comprehend it.

"The Department of Mysteries is the home of all of the most amazing and powerful secrets of magic," she said passionately, her large eyes bugging out a bit. "If it were infiltrated by the wrong people, we could be destroyed."

"I would only know if we had been infiltrated if one of my co-workers suddenly started to display a personality," Lily said crankily.

"Don't be so mean, Lily. I'm sure it would turn anyone serious, with so many secrets in their head." Dorcas' voice reached an almost reverential whisper.

Lily made a face which she hoped expressed quite how batty she thought that was, but she wasn't sure Dorcas had caught it. Dorcas was very intelligent, but she wasn't very good at reading sarcasm. She thought Lily was lovely, as a consequence.

She brought Lily out one Saturday night. They drank in a dingy workman's bar as the only women, and consequently had the pick of the men. Lily drank wine and not her usual beer and had gotten sloppy drunk, smearing her lipstick across Dorcas' ear as she giggled on her. She had met a nice lad, a bit thick but with nice eyes, who helped her home. She kissed him, while Dorcas was throwing up in a shrub, and his arm was circling her waist.

The next day, they agreed that they had put themselves in serious danger considering the War, and that they shouldn't get silly drunk anymore, even if it was alright for the boys, who went around kissing whoever they wanted and fell about drunk pretty much any time they weren't on a mission.


	3. 3

It had been a mistake, Lily knew.

She had known it since the first moment he had kissed her, hands curled around her neck and breath hot on her cheek.

She pulled herself out of the bed and scrambled for her knickers, her skirt, her blouse.

He caught her as she was gathering her tights in her hands like gloves. She froze, shoulders hunched forward, hair in her eyes.

He placed a hesitant hand on her arm, but quickly pulled away.

"Lily, please," he started.

"Don't," she said firmly. "It sounds like everyone is up," she continued in a tone of forced cheer. "I'm getting breakfast."

She pushed her hair out of her face and it tangled around her fingers. She should have brushed it after getting caught in the rain, but then, she had never been sensible like that, had she?

"So we're back to this, are we?" James demanded angrily. "Unspeakable Lily, won't say a word about anything, even if it's just her own feelings."

Lily gave up on her tights and stuffed them under the mattress with a little too much force. "Your wounds look almost fully healed, so I'll just go then shall I?"

She stood to get up and James grabbed her elbow, digging his short nails into her skin. "Just talk to me, please."

"What do you want to know?" She cried, throwing her hands into the air. "I live with Dorcas, I work with you in the Order of the Phoenix, I gave up smoking, I'm miserable, I-I wo-I…I work in the Department of Mysteries and I make Amortentia, or at least I did until they told me I was too weak, because of YOU. Because of what you did to me, because…because…I count time turners and there's a room full of Love that can never be unlocked and a tank full of brains that can power themselves and-oh my God!"

"You make Amortentia?" James asked in confusion. "That's your mission?"

"The charm, it's broken!"

"I can't believe you- Oh my God!"

"Oh good, you've caught up!"

"Dumbledore! Where's Dumbledore?" The pair raced down the stairs, to a room full of bemused breakfasters.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Sirius said on behalf of everyone in the room.

"Shut up," Lily cried. "Where is he?"

"I believe he is in the library, although I'd suggest perhaps you find some trousers before you go in, Potter," Minerva McGonagall said, and raised an eyebrow.

James looked down and blushed. "Shit! Okay, uh…one sec…Oh! Hello, Professor Dumbledore."

"I believe I was summoned," Dumbledore smiled beatifically. "You're looking significantly less wounded than you were last night."

"Uh, yeah, well, Lily's a very good at healing spells," he tugged at his hair sheepishly.

"She's got great ones for reducing swelling," Sirius said out of the side of his mouth.

Peter clapped his hands to his mouth to disguise his tittering.

Lily flushed to the tips of her knotted curls.

Dumbledore looked at them calmly. Everyone else in the room stared.

"I presume," Dumbledore prompted. "That you were searching for me for a reason?"

"Yes," James sighed in relief. "You see, Pr-"

"The Minister for Magic is dead!" Lily cut across him.

Dumbledore looked at her intently. He did not seem shocked by the news, but then no-one had ever seen him look shocked.

"I see. How can you be sure?"

"The Fidelius Charm is broken."

The room waited in stunned silence.

Dumbledore spun on his heel. "It seems our mission last night was not as successful as we had hoped. I must go to the Ministry and maintain stability. Minerva, make my apologies at the feast tonight."

Minerva stood up. "Of course, Albus."

"Everyone else is to await instructions. Act as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened."

"Yes, sir," the room chorused.

Albus pulled out his cape and strode out the front door. Lily scuttled out awkwardly, not too far behind him, before anyone had a chance to make another joke.

It should have been harder, Lily thought, and she was right.

It should have been harder.

Lily and Dorcas ate lunch together on Tuesdays and Fridays. It was the only time Dorcas' shift allowed, and she was so insistent that Lily could never say no.

Friday noon and there she was, eating a ham sandwich and listening to Dorcas talk about her morning spent sending out warning letters to Wizarding Families not to let their children use magic in their homes over the Christmas holidays.

Her sandwich wasn't particularly nice.

"Not that it will stop them," Dorcas said. "Once the kids figure out that there's no Trace for Wizarding households, there's nothing that can be done."

Behind Dorcas, a small man in a floppy hat stumbled and nearly dropped his dinner, but caught it again.

Lily surveyed her sandwich. There was nothing technically wrong with it. Two slices of bread, some ham, some mustard.

The man in the hat threw his arms wide in a sheepish way. He received rapturous applause from his friends. The Department of Magical Games and Sports was such a boy's club.

She shouldn't have slept with him.

The bread was a little stale, she decided. And thin. She liked her sandwich bread big enough to stop a door.

"Hogwarts letters," Dorcas was saying. "Blatantly unfair to Muggleborns. Blah, blah, accidental magic, blah blah."

Why did food taste so ashy in her mouth now? Was it for the same reason that everything seemed dull and grey?

A woman with springy ringlets elbowed Lily in the shoulder as she passed, but she didn't really feel it. She couldn't really feel or taste anything.

Shhhhhh

"Are you going to eat those crisps? Thanks. Hey, are you alright? You're all flushed."

Lily was very flushed, but in a pleasant, toe-tingly kind of a way.

Easy. Relax. Listen to me

"Lily? Lily?"

Give in to those thoughts, you know you want t- oh bugger, that was my eye, you prick!

Lily snapped back into reality. All of the lights and sounds around her came rushing back at full strength, even though she didn't realise that they had been dimmed. Dorcas was slapping her hand, quietly but firmly.

"I'm okay," she breathed.

"Why should I believe you?" Dorcas asked fiercely.

"Because someone just tried to cast the Imperius on me, but they got poked in the eye!" Lily whispered.

Dorcas blinked, and relaxed. "Well, I'm no expert, but I think if you had been Imperius'd there's no way you could be that creative."

"Thanks," Lily said. "Y'know, for noticing something was wrong."

"No problem," Dorcas said.

"You can stop slapping me now."

"Oops! Alright."

"Can you see anyone clutching at their eye by any chance?"

"No, you?"

"No. They've probably scarpered anyway."

"Probably."

"So…who first? The Boss or Dumbledore?"

To Lily's chagrin, Dumbledore was a lot more interested her weaknesses than in the fact that she had been attacked in broad daylight.

"Ham," she said hastily, "I was thinking about ham."

"I see." Dumbledore surveyed her over his spectacles. "Luncheon or…?"

"Yes," Lily answered firmly.

"Well," he said gently. "Perhaps you should consider stopping your ponderings on…ham… for the time being."

"Of course, Professor. Already instituted."

Dumbledore smiled a little knowingly. "It doesn't do you well, to think about things like ham all of the time. It can distract a witch."

"Yes, sir. Maybe I should become a vegetarian."

"Certainly not. You would do nothing but think about meat."

"Two hundred and seventeen," Lily muttered to herself. "Two hundred and seventeen?"

Around her, the shadows lengthened.

She consulted her logs, again and again, adjusted for ones on loan, adjusted for ones possibly playing tricks with time.

With all but one candle burned up, she started counting again.

"The time turners are playing tricks on me," Lily told Dorcas a week later. "One day there's five missing, the next there's two extra…"

"Maybe you are going mad," Dorcas suggested helpfully.

Lily flopped down onto her favourite armchair and scrunched her hair into her fists in frustration.

"Maybe." She sighed loudly. "Do you think I'd get away with skipping this Order meeting?"

"No," Dorcas sympathized. "The Minister of Magic is dead, we're struggling to keep the Ministry under our control and with magic, it's pretty difficult to pull a sickie."

"I hate them," Lily groaned, bearing a remarkable resemblance to a child on their first day back at school. "Not only have I only recently mortified myself in front of most of them, but I also am going to have to be careful not to blurt out any of the mysteries of the universe!"

Dorcas patted her hand gently. "Well, dear, you know what they say. Don't sleep with your ex after he barely survives a dangerous mission and then wind up in front of your old schoolteachers in your pants."

"You're so wise," Lily sighed. "I should get that embroidered onto my pillow."

Dorcas' magical watch started to chime and the girls rose, gathered their coats and scarves, and locked their front door behind them.

"Should we Apparate from outside ourselves or wait for-?" Dorcas jerked her head to the right as they climbed down the stairs.

"Peter can come with us, if he likes," Lily said, her voice growing in volume as they reached the outdoors. "WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, PETE, OR HAVE YOU ANY OTHER JOBS?"

"Um, I'd like that." Peter Pettigrew's muffled voice muttered sheepishly in Lily's ear, causing both girls to jump.

"Can't you at least take off that Cloak?" Lily asked.

"Sorry, no. Orders."

"Yeah, yeah," Lily sighed. "Give us your arm then. You too, Dorcas."

"Don't forget," Dorcas said, putting on her gloves. "The first street to the right, third house. Be ready to run." She looked sideways at the air beside Lily. "There's no chance of us all fitting under that thing is there?"

"No," Lily sighed. "Pete doesn't even fit. I can see your shoelaces, Pete."

"Shit," Peter mumbled. "That explains why that cat wouldn't leave me be."

Lily laughed and then felt for his arm. What a guard.

"Come on then."

No sooner had Lily landed unsteadily on the cobbled stones that she was grabbed by the arm and pulled.

Panicking, she shot off a spell that hit her assailant right in the chest and knocked him off his feet.

"Lily, stop!" Peter threw himself between the two. "It's Prongs!"

And sure enough, it was.

"Nice reflexes, Evans," he wheezed, and held out a hand for Peter to help him to his feet. "Non-verbal, too."

Lily pushed Peter over and stabbed her wand into the sore spot on his chest. "What's the first thing you ever said to me?"

"Oi ginge, what's with the hair," James sighed, a little sheepishly.

Lily lowered the wand slowly and he relaxed a little, until she started smacking him.

"Oi! Leave off, Evans!"

"What is wrong with you? Ambushing me like that. HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST YOUR MIND, YOU STUPID PILLOCK?"

"Lily, relax." Dorcas sighed. "We have to get inside. It's dangerous to be hanging around out here."

"YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS DANGEROUS?" Lily roared.

"Ambushes?" James asked, innocently.

"DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME, JAMES POTTER."

"OK, OK, you're right. I shouldn't have grabbed you. I just thought you wouldn't want to talk to me if you had your way."

"How long have you been out here waiting for…?" Lily turned quickly to Peter and pointed an accusatory finger at his darting eyes. "You rat!"

"I'm just…"

"Leave off him, Evans. He's just trying to help a mate."

"Who exactly are you taking orders from anyway? Are you guarding me because he told you to?"

Peter hesitantly opened his mouth to answer. "I-"

"Of course not," James argued. "Dumbledore is the one tailing you. I just wanted to talk to you before the meeting."

"Well it's too late for that now," Dorcas interrupted. "We're already late."

"Bollocks," James swore, and the four of them took off in a sprint down the alley to the dark looking house around the corner.

They managed to sneak their way to the back of the room just as Dumbledore was fielding questions about the newly announced Minister of Magic, Barty Crouch.

"I'm aware that he is not everyone's first choice, but it is the opinion of many of the Wizengamot that a tougher line of action is required by the Ministry."

A general rumble of disapproval passed through the crowd. James suddenly pushed ahead of Lily to take the floor. Lily felt a shudder, just a little one, at his presence.

"Is it true, sir, that he's going to give the Aurors the power to use the Unforgivables?"

"A petition has been raised to the Wizengamot and it is likely that is will pass," Dumbledore nodded.

Lily heard Dorcas gasp behind her, along with several other members of the Order around the room.

"That makes us no better than them!" James argued.

A cacophony of voices rose up around the room.

"It's barbaric!"

"Is it? They're happy to torture any innocent people they find."

"That much power in anyone's hands."

"Moody won't allow this…"

"He's such a pillock!"

"Silence," Dumbledore said quietly, and everyone stopped talking immediately. "Barty Crouch is to be our new Minister, and there is nothing we can do about it. We will work with him in so far as he allows us to win this war. Now, let us move on to our scheduled agenda. Mundungus, can you please present your intelligence on the Avery family and their movements."

"I've been tracking them for two months now, and I can confirm that they have been seen skulking around the forests outside of Devon, sir, as well as frequenting the local, ah, establishments, these being the Horse's Head, the Dog and Jockey, and the Stagger Inn. I have put myself at great personal risk by choosing to follow them to these establishments in cunning disguise…."

Lily was barely in bed when the knock on the door came, and though she had expected it, she resented the timing.

"Do you have any idea how late it is?" she swung the door open with her wand in her hand.

"Oi ginge, what's with the hair?" James said tonelessly and pushed past her into the flat. "I tried to find out after the meeting but you must have run off immediately."

"Don't be dramatic." Lily blushed a little at the accusation. She had, in fact, grabbed Dorcas and fled before Dumbledore had even officially ended the meeting.

James surveyed the little room which Lily and Dorcas shared as living space. "This is nice. Nicer than your last place. Less blood and guts."

"Thanks." Lily folded her arms and stood there stiffly.

"Aren't you going to offer me tea?"

She stared at him for a few seconds, in the hope that he would become intimidated and back down. It didn't work. She sighed. "Would you like some tea, James?"

"Ta, no sugar."

"Since when do you not take 5 spoons of sugar?" Lily asked. She moved into the kitchenette and James followed her. She conjured two mugs and tapped her kettle, causing it to boil instantly.

"Since Padfoot swapped it with beetle's wings as a joke." James accepted the mug which was shoved not-so-gently into his hands and grimaced.

"Oh," Lily said awkwardly. "Are you living with him, then?"

"Not so much. I'm living with Remus but he's been gone for months so Sirius stays over a lot."

"Right," Lily nodded.

"Dorcas seems alright, for an older bird."

"James," Lily sighed. "Say what you have to say."

James' posture stiffened and his face became very serious. He put his mug down on the counter and gripped the granite with both hands.

"I wanted to talk after…the last night."

"Is there anything to talk about?" Lily asked, wearily.

"I think there is," James hedged. "I think that the fact that we did…what we did, it must mean something."

"James," Lily said kindly. "We loved each other very much, and those feelings don't just go away in a few months. But we've talked about this. We can't work together."

"I think I made a mistake," James said seriously. "I think if we tried a little harder-"

"You're forgetting why we broke up," Lily cut across him. "You think because now you have an idea of what I do as an Unspeakable that everything is better, but that wasn't our problem. Our problem was that you wanted to possess me so completely-"

"Shut up with that bullshit," James interrupted her. "I'm not Snape. I've always loved how capable, how strong you are. I was scared. I still am. Knowing what you do doesn't make me any less scared, even if it is a relief in some ways. It's harder now, because I don't know if you're safe, ever. Time was, if you were late home from work I'd worry. Now I worry constantly."

"That's not a good enough reason not to get back together."

"What is, then? We're in a war, Lily. I see people die every day. I don't want to be without you anymore. I thought….I thought that we'd be together forever."

"We were just kids, James," she argued, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. "We were innocent and naive."

"The way I feel hasn't changed," James said slowly and deliberately. "I've only ever loved you. I'll never love anyone else."

"Please leave," Lily choked out. "We agreed…"

"Fine," James stormed out of the kitchenette. Before he got to the door he turned to look at her. "Think about it, Lily. You and I both know that there is no way we are all getting out of this war alive. Don't you want to make the most of the time you have?"

He left the flat, and Lily dumped his tea down the sink.


	4. 4

The Order seemed to be getting smaller and smaller and their ability to recruit new members seemed to diminish with every passing day. Lily found herself being called on more and more for basic Order tasks.

She was often called upon to perform ad-hoc care to injured members after fights. Although Lily had never had the opportunity to join the Healer program at St. Mungo's as she had wanted, she had enough practice under her belt over the years, especially dealing with the Marauders (and particularly Remus), to be able to provide some basic spells. Those ailments she didn't know how to cure she enjoyed researching, but a lot of her treatments came from good old-fashioned Muggle remedies. Wizards had never had to learn the basics of CPR or how to put pressure on a wound, and therefore treated her as if she possessed a kind of magic they didn't. It gave Lily a lot of pleasure because she was well aware that while they were all fighting the same fight, there were plenty of Purebloods in the Order who were less concerned about Muggleborn rights than, say, stopping the destruction of Wizarding society as they knew it. She liked to be able to show them all the things they had to learn from the Muggle World.

Other times, Lily was called on for administrative tasks. When she had any spare time, she would comb through spell records Dorcas swiped from the office, looking for any suspicious behaviour. She rarely found anything, but it made her feel more useful.

And there was the odd night when she would be called in for the closest she could get to "real Order work." This usually consisted of standing guard on some of the safer places in their missions while the Aurors and other front line fighters did their work. Sometimes it simply meant spying on the dodgier establishments in Knockturn Alley, other times it meant watching suspected Death Eater families.

On this particular occasion, Lily was posted on the north east corner of the Nott Estate, lying on her stomach behind a little hillock, drenched in mud and rainwater.

"This is bollocks," she muttered through gritted teeth. Unfortunately, her one admission of disgust in six hours served only to fuel her companion, who had been irritating her for several hours now.

"Not so nice, is it, Evans? A hard day's work- some of us are used to it, being proper fighters and all that."

"Oh bollocks to you, Black," Lily snarled. "This was supposed to take two hours."

"These things never take two hours," he said sanctimoniously. "You'd know that if you had any experience at this."

"If I had any experience being a toff, you mean."

That shut him up.

Well, for a few minutes.

"I bet they don't have this kind of work in the Department of Mysteries, though."

Lily's mouth magically zipped itself into a tight line.

"Oh, I forgot. You can't talk about it now that the Charm is back in place, can you? Not that I don't know well how hard it is or isn't. Counting the number of stars in the universe and weighing wisdom, I'm sure."

"If you have a problem with my mission, then you can take it up with Dumbledore," Lily forced through her closed lips.

"I'm not the one who should be complaining," Sirius said. "This should infuriate you."

"Why?" Lily asked thoughtlessly, and instantly regretted taking his bait.

"Oh come on, Evans!"

"What?" she asked defensively, sitting up onto her side and balancing on her right elbow while he mirrored her actions. "What's wrong with taking an internship in one of the most prestigious Departments there is? Maybe it's not got enough flying motorbikes or reckless endangerment for you, but it suits me just fine."

"That," Sirius said, reaching over to prod her in the chest. "Is the biggest load of hippogriff dung I've ever heard in my life. Prestigious internship? It's a stuffy job for old men who are finished living their lives and now want to think about the lives they once led!"

"Sirius!"

"You were supposed to be a Healer!" Sirius barked, and an owl in the trees to their left gave a startled hoot and flew away. He lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. "You've always wanted to be one, you worked your arse off to get accepted to that program, and then you gave it up without so much as a by-your-leave. Head Girl at Hogwarts, brightest witch in our year, and you're holed up in an antiquated Department when there are real problems in the world. I don't know what Dumbledore is thinking," he shook his head. "And I don't know what happened to the Lily Evans I knew, because she would never have allowed this to go on for so long."

He finished his speech and surveyed her for a long time. Through the darkness, Lily could make out only his bright eyes and the slash of his mouth.

She could feel the tell-tale prickling behind her eyes and the hoarseness in her throat, and she sighed and pushed it back down.

"Well?" Sirius snapped. "Don't you have anything to say?"

Lily's hands were shaking very badly, and she was very, very upset, but she swallowed her rebuttal. "No."

Sirius stared at her as if she had sprouted wings.

"I never thought I'd see the day you didn't want to argue back. Maybe James was right. Maybe you are different."

He settled back onto her stomach, leaving his final comment hanging in the air. Every once and a while he would look back at her and scrutinise her face. Lily suspected he was checking for signs of a curse. Perhaps he believed someone had cast an Imperius on her.

They lay in the ditch for another hour in silence, which gave Lily plenty of time to think about what Sirius had said to her.

She tried to remember Seventh Year, when she was brimming with self-righteousness and ambition. She had been so determined to convince everyone that she, a Muggleborn, could be the best. Not only her classmates, but her sister and parents as well.

Being a Muggleborn witch would always mean being an outcast on every side, and Lily had learnt that the hard way. She had learnt pretty quickly after leaving Hogwarts that no matter how she prepared, she wasn't going to be able to succeed in the Wizarding world. Even finding a summer job had proved impossible due to her blood status, and in the Muggle world, she found herself orphaned by the end of the summer, with both of her parents dying of terminal illness. Her sister shunned her completely, and the relationship on which she had learnt to depend disintegrated in the months to come. Maybe Sirius was right, she mused. Maybe James had been angry on her behalf that she hadn't had the chance to become a Healer. But that was a decision she had made herself, knowing full well that sacrifices had to be made in the name of the war.

Maybe he was right, too, about the Department of Mysteries. She certainly didn't feel as if she was living up to her full potential there. In fact, she was aware that a lot of the life had drained out of her in the past few months. But she had full faith in Dumbledore's plan, and besides, who was Sirius Black to decide how lively she should be? Sirius Black, manically happy one moment, and darkly depressive the next. Sirius Black, who made terrible decisions on impulse that almost killed himself and others.

"James wants to reconcile," she blurted to the darkness.

"He mentioned," Sirius said, sounding bored.

"Do you have an opinion on that?" she asked, almost daring him.

Black shrugged. "I think it's good that he's stopped deluding himself into thinking that your relationship didn't work for any reason that you couldn't have helped."

"Sometimes things just don't work out."

"Sometimes. But not this time."

"Well I disagree," she huffed.

"Good," Black laughed, surprising her. "You've always been really good at denial."

"This isn't school, Black. This isn't some stupid antagonistic friendship that's going to eventually wear me down."

Sirius inspected his nails. It was a ridiculous movement, considering that his hands were caked with mud, but it gave him the air of simultaneous smugness and disinterest to which he aspired. "We'll see."

"I know what you're trying to do," she said crankily. "It's not going to work."

"You're no fun anymore," Sirius sighed. "We used to have great banter."

"Is that what you call it?"

They lapsed into further silence. The estate remained as quiet as ever, save for the rustling of small mammals and birds among the brush. The moon cut a slice through the dark sky in the distance.

"Oh for the love of Merlin!" Sirius burst out. "How long is this meeting?"

"Getting uncomfortable, Black?"

"I think I'm getting trench foot."

"Oh, poor dear," she purred. "I'm actually quite comfortable right now." She would have convinced him, too, had she not then blinked the rain out of her eyes furiously.

Sirius lay down on his back with a sigh. "Birds!"

They moved Lily onto the Space Room in order to work on a new highly experimental project that would help them to keep the planets in line. Lily was extremely excited at this prospect, until she found out that the "highly experimental" part of the project translated to "no magic."

Instead, she had to try keeping the planets together by manually chasing after them all day. It was great exercise, but fiercely frustrating work. Whether the planets had minds of their own she did not know, but there was one in particular, Neptune, which she was sure was deliberately troublesome. It couldn't stay in place for an hour, and seemed more adept than the others at playing hide and seek. On top of this, Lily would suddenly find herself hoisted up in the air several times a day, floating cantankerously until the Universe decided to leave her alone.

There were a lot of projects in the Department of Mysteries which relied on the planets. Tests on Seeing and astrology were often used by tracking the movements of the planets over a few seconds of time and space. It had become something of a joke in the Department when a would-be Seer would announce sagely, "Jupiter is in the third quarter, a dark mist will fall over the land."

They adapted remarkably quickly to Lily's presence, even when she was floating about with the orbs, giving them her sternest glare and tapping her foot on thin air.

"The scrawny, red one is on the cusp of Mars and Venus," she even heard somebody say as they passed one day. "I should buy a lottery ticket."

Another day, she was dropped to the ground very suddenly when a tremendous shake rattled the ceiling in a low roar. Surprised at what could attack the building down to its very foundations, she went down to the Brain Room, which held by far the most occupants. The brains were high maintenance, in need of careful attention and almost constant feedings in order to remain controllable.

Her colleagues bustled around her, but nobody seemed the slightest bit interested in what could have happened outside of the Department. She received permission from her slightly bemused supervisor to see what was going on.

Carefully, she made her way to the Atrium, wand at the ready, and on her guard. Members of the Wizengamot rushed past her up the stairs, heedless of any possible danger. As she reached the Atrium the noises increased in volume. Lily approached the main entrance to the large Atrium and came upon what seemed to be a large riot taking place.

There didn't seem to be any duelling, she noted quickly, but more of an uproar. There was a large crowd congregating in the middle who seemed to be viewing some kind of spectacle, but whether it was with approval or anger, Lily could not tell. All around her, people seemed to be shouting and yelling at each other and at the events occurring. Lily spotted a girl whose name she thought was Abbott, a Hufflepuff who had been a year ahead of her in school who was watching with her mouth open.

"Cara!" Lily called as she approached her and the girl turned and grabbed her arm.

"Oh, Lily!" she cried. "Can you believe it?"

"I've just arrived," Lily explained. "What's going on?"

"They passed it," Cara said seriously, and Lily knew what she meant before she even said it. "The Aurors have been granted infinite powers."

Lily groaned and buried her head in her hands. "What are they thinking?"

"Moody resigned."

"WHAT?"

Cara nodded fervently. "Didn't your James tell you? Three of them have left, mostly the younger ones, and Moody."

"He's not my James anymore," Lily said urgently, and Cara turned to her with her mouth agape.

"You're joking?"

Either this girl was very easily shocked, Lily thought, or she was genuinely more surprised at the break-up of a couple from school than anarchy at the Ministry.

At that moment, however, a tired looking Auror name McKellan who Lily remembered from sitting at the Gryffindor table in days gone by approached them. He wrapped a tired arm around Cara, who hugged him fiercely.

"Evans," he acknowledged wearily. "I'm fine Cara, honestly."

"You're staying then?" Lily asked.

"'Course I am," he grunted. "Who do Potter and his friends think they're helping by quitting? Are they going to go rogue or something?" He and Cara laughed, and Lily laughed weakly with them. "It's been hard enough this past year, trying to fight these bastards. I'm not going torturing every one of them I meet, but I'm not walking out because of it." He rubbed the stubble on his chin and watched the crowd ahead of him. "It's amazing. That James Potter could have been Head of Department one day, purely by his ability to lead. Now he's running away." He glanced at Lily. "You wouldn't give a crack at changing his mind then?"

"Lily and James broke up," Cara answered for Lily.

McKellan looked her up and down. "That so? Fancy a drink sometime then, Evans?"

"Oh sod off," Lily grumbled, and returned to the Department of Mysteries, which was noticeably free of drama.

She was not hugely surprised to have James Potter show up at her door that night, smelling strongly of firewhiskey.

"Come with me," he begged, before she had time to greet him.

She shut the door in his face and went back to bed.

Word soon spread that the Aurors who had resigned were indeed fighting in their own resistance group. They were constantly appearing at the site of attacks at the same time as the Ministry, and were constantly getting arrested for it.

Dumbledore convened a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix in an attempt to come to a solution. They met in an abandoned warehouse a mile out of small town in Kent, and Lily feared that no Muggle-repelling spells could cover the noise in the room.

The entire Order seemed to be shouting at once. Minerva McGonagall, who was sitting at the top of the room beside Dumbledore, was using her wand to make a loud banging noise. The evident intent was to bring order to the room, but this was not working particularly well. In fact, it only added to the din.

Lily stayed at the back of the room, quiet and shocked. She had expected there to be anger and frustration, of course, but not this. Dumbledore wanted the Aurors to go back to the Ministry. The intelligence to which they had access was too vital to the Order. Their constant presence at crime scenes was shining too bright a light on the secret Order. Lily tended to agree with his reasoning, but she also agreed with the Aurors that the powers permitted to the whole Department would serve only to pour gasoline on the flames of this war.

Beside her, Sturgis Podmore threw his chair on the ground, shattering two legs. James and his friends were at the top of the room, with Alastor Moody, and perhaps among themselves they were making enough noise to fill the room. They had always been fans of noise and big productions, Lily remembered, but nothing like this. The atmosphere in the room was the darkest she could remember. She felt like a soldier for the first time in her life.

The meeting did not so much end as it dissipated into nothing. Dumbledore admitted that he could not force the Aurors to change their minds, but he urged them forcefully to do so. He then had to leave on an urgent call, and that took the wind out of the room. Everyone grumbled and shuffled around and put their chairs where they should be and looked sheepishly at one another.

Lily wished Marlene had been there. She would have had an opinion, she was sure. Not just an opinion on the Aurors but on the room in general, on the way everyone was acting. Here and there Lily watched her colleagues and old school friends grow pale, worn and tired. There was a man, Dinkley, who had seen his whole family murdered by Death Eaters. He sat in his chair, still, swaying slightly. Lily wondered if he still ate, or slept. He looked worse than a walking zombie to her.

Lily went home soon after that. Dorcas told her that they had stayed well in to the night, drinking and strategising.

"Those boys," she said, and Lily knew who she meant without having to hear their names. "They remind me why I fight in the first place."

"Hmmph," Lily said, grumpily.

Dorcas had noticed that something was wrong on Thursday evening, and thankfully she had run straight to the Order with it. Dorcas, who was known for being a little reticent and shy, had banged insistently on Mad-Eye Moody's door until he had taken her seriously.

There was going to be attack, and it was going to be on Muggles.

It was going to be in Brighton, within the city centre, and it was happening on Saturday.

That was pretty much all they knew.

Because they didn't know the exact location, they positioned undercover agents at every major Muggle area. There was a festival on the boardwalk that weekend, and they were treating that as the most serious target. Lily had been called up to cover one of the smaller venues, an old cinema playing a tribute to some old '40s movies.

She was placed with Sirius Black, and they were disguised as a young couple with a baby. The baby was, in fact, a charmed doll, which cried at a pitch that raised the hairs on Sirius' neck. One of them would stay in the theatre, watching the crowd, which the other would sit in the lobby, on the pretence of calming the colicky baby. Every half an hour or so, they would switch places. As the crowd changed with every movie, the only people they had to worry about were the staff, who were shooting their baby dirty looks after only an hour.

They were forced, therefore, to start changing their disguise with every film that started. A disgruntled pair on a bad first date, a businessman with his dotty mother, a chavvy couple muttering abuse at each other. Once the staff had changed shifts at five o' clock, they reverted back to their baby. Lily made sure to chav them up a little more this time though, because so many people had tried to catch a glimpse or offer her advice on her unhappy child. Lily had managed to perfect a dirty stare that turned people away at first glance. Sirius, who was already master or the disinterested glance, should have been pulling in women from all sides with a baby nestled in his arms, so Lily had given him a rather unsightly wart on the tip of his nose that was keeping him on his own.

"All clear," she sighed, settling onto the bench beside him which he lazily bounced their swaddled baby on his lap.

"No shit," he snapped. Patience was not Sirius' virtue, and he was not happy to be missing out when he knew there would be action somewhere else.

"I'm getting a Coke," she said, standing back up. "Want anything?"

He ignored her, and so she left without waiting for a response.

When she returned, she noticed him hastily shoving a mirror into the inside of his coat pocket.

"Chocolate?" she asked, shaking it into his face.

"No," he said loudly.

"Your chest is laughing," she pointed out. "I presume James likes the wart?"

Sirius was blatantly ignoring her now, even though his chest was still rumbling with laughter. Lily shifted until her wand was poking out of the band of her jeans. She touched it gently. "Silencio." The laughter stopped.

"I'm going for a fag," Sirius said grumpily. "Are you coming?"

"We can't be smoking with a baby," she gestured.

"Nobody said we have to be good parents, Lily," he shrugged, and stormed outside.

Lily sighed and readjusted the heavy lump in her arms. The baby grew quieter with her movements until it was only whimpering.

Lily sat back in the seat, feeling warm and sleepy. Slowly, her eyes began to droop closed. She yawned.

A flash of green slashed across the black of her eyelids.

And the world turned upside down in turmoil.

Lily had pulled out her wand before she had time to think, ducking and shooting the quickest Patronus she had every managed. In front of her were d dozen or so Death Eaters, but in the commotion they hadn't seen her. They had strung up the manager, a portly, middle-aged man, and were shooting curses at him. A young teenager who had poured Lily's Coke only a few minutes before was lying dead, eyes wide in terror.

The audience were spilling out with the end of the film, and getting caught up in absolute chaos.

Lily looked desperately around for Sirius but couldn't find him. She was supposed to wait for the others to respond to her alarm, but it had been nearly a minute already and nothing. A sudden bang outside and it occurred to her that they attacked more than one place at a time, and the others were fighting their own battles.

She sat, stricken on the bench, clutching her baby tightly.

One of the Death Eaters had pulled a young mother forward, and was caressing her face in a way that made Lily feel sick. The woman was shielding behind her a little girl, three or four years old, with little curls. Scared as she obviously was, she was defiant in his (and Lily assumed it was a man's) face. He was not impressed, however, and pulled the woman towards him. Lazily, he drew his face to her jaw and licked slowly at her neck. Then, carelessly, he Banished her to the corner of the room. The woman hit the wall with a sickening crack, but it was obvious that she was still conscious, because she began to scream, loudly and angrily. To the screams and horror of the people packed into the room, the Death Eater levitated the little girl and began to spin her, slowly at first and then quicker and quicker until the child began to turn grey.

"Bugger this," Lily said, and jumped to her feet. It took her only a few steps to storm into the melee and break the spell, causing the little girl to crash safely into the arms of another man who was watching in horror.

She stunned the Death Eater silently, but the blast from her wand alerted every Death Eater in the room to her presence, and she quickly reverted back to shouting her spells, which gave her an advantage of speed and power where non-verbal magic provided the element of surprise. There were suddenly a lot of spells flying towards her, but Lily's power had always been in levelling a room. She had done it before, when breaking up a fight with Sirius and Snape, slamming the whole room to the ground and disarming half of them at the same time.

A dazed and bemused James Potter had likened her to an earthquake and had asked her out for the first time.

Her blood was boiling even hotter than it had on that occasion today, and she managed to stun half of the Death Eaters (and, okay, a few innocent bystanders), and send the rest of them careening to the floor. It was easier to duel then, because some were slower at getting to their feet than others, but Lily knew that she only had precious seconds left before she was killed or something much, much worse.

She glanced to the glass doors, which were barricaded shut and darkened. They must have cursed the door, because surely Black should be here by now, she thought. She didn't have much time left to think however, because a woman, whose lithe frame was visible even under her robes, shot a spell at her that knocked her off her feet. Lily was winded, but quick to recover, and jumping to her feet, she lost her mind completely. She had been good at this, she remembered as she knocked the woman off her feet and swiftly disarmed another Death Eater sneaking to her left. She had duelled with James Potter many times in her life, and he was an excellent fighter. It was not quite the same challenge when she was outnumbered ten-to-one, but she did not care very much. It had never been a very smart plan to duel with Potter in the hallway when they were both Head students, but that had never stopped her, and she was not about to be stopped now.

A lumbering man, whose mask had half-fallen off to reveal a set of broken teeth and rotten breath shot a tower of fire at her. Lily ducked under the counter, feeling the reassuring coldness of the ice machine beside her.

"Too slow!" she cackled, feeling quite insane.

She pulled herself up onto the counter top, above the Death Eaters, and blasted at the door. A small crack opened up in the centre. Quickly, she ducked another tower of flame and tucked her head to her chest as she tumbled to the floor.

"Get back!" she shouted to a Muggle man who tried to help her up. Her leg gave way under her and she gasped in pain but there was no time to pause. She crouched low and aimed at three pairs of feet coming towards her. She missed every one of them.

Suddenly, there was an almighty crash, and the doors gave way. There were Order members pouring into the room, and Lily took advantage of her enemies' distraction to attack them again, taking great satisfaction from the sound of bone cracking against the ground.

"You little bitch!" Suddenly there was a woman on Lily, the same lithe woman she had hit earlier, but she seemed incensed that Lily had managed to hurt someone, and instead of using magic had latched onto Lily's head. She dug her hands into her scalp and Lily screamed, forgetting that she had a wand in the shock of the physicality of the attack

"Bloody hell, Bella," Sirius Black appeared in her vision, blasting the woman off her. "Just because she's a ginger."

The woman that Lily now recognised to be Bellatrix Black hissed and slashed at Sirius' face. Finding her nails ineffective, she dived for her wand, but Sirius was quicker and lazily stunned her. She fell to the ground with a loud crash, taking a popcorn stand with her.

"I'm glad you decided to show up," Lily said breathlessly.

"They cursed the door, took us ages to break through," Sirius said quickly. "Lily, I'm so-"

"Now isn't the time," James Potter crashed into them. "Evans, watch your back!"

Lily spun around quickly, and fired off a breathless Shield which caused the man attacking her to rebound against the wall.

Sirius heaved her to her feet. "The Aurors are on their way. We can't be here."

"The Muggles!" she gasped.

"Dearborn is getting them out now," Sirius shouted impatiently, and Lily could see that the lobby had cleared out hugely. "He's modifying their memories as we speak."

The majority of the Death Eaters were either lying unconscious by this point or had fled, and Lily knew that they could not be caught here or they would be in big trouble.

"Come ON!" Moody shouted ahead of them.

"I can't stand," Lily gasped. "Or breathe."

Sirius grabbed her and slammed her into the most violent Side-along Apparition she had ever experienced.

They landed heavily, with Sirius only barely keeping hold on her as she crashed to the ground. "My leg," she groaned.

"Your ribs, too, I'd wager." Sirius gritted his teeth and pulled her up. "We're nearly there."

They were ushered into a crowded house in central London, with high ceilings and faded wallpaper. Around them, people were bustling about, some moaning in pain and others trying to help.

Sirius set her down on a cot in the middle of the hallway. "Are you bleeding?" he asked.

"No, but you are," she gasped for breath.

"Are you organs settled in the right place?" he asked worriedly, brushing her hand away from the cut in his hair.

"I'll fix myself," she said with gritted teeth. "I'm better at it than you."

"You know that is incredibly dangerous," Sirius protested, but Lily was already pressing her wand to her ribcage and shuddering as her ribs knit back together. "You are some witch for one witch," Sirius grinned.

"I can do the ankle," James Potter had arrived beside them. He was sporting a black eye, and a nasty gash across his left cheek. "Padfoot, no offence, but you are rubbish at Healing spells."

"Fine," Sirius groaned. "I'll make the ruddy tea then."

James rolled up Lily's jeans, which were sticking to her skin. There were a few pieces of broken glass sticking into her skin, but the pain was eclipsed by her swollen ankle, which she guessed was probably broken.

"Careful," she muttered, as he gently touched her ankle.

"This is a nasty break," he murmured.

"It's fine. There are more important injuries in here."

"I don't care," he said very quietly and very simply, and Lily closed her eyes to avoid meeting his.

Even more gently, he held her ankle into position, and whispered a quiet "Episkey," to her shin. His lips very nearly brushed against her skin. With a jolt, Lily heard and felt her bone crack into place and begin to knit together. Immediately, the swelling began to subside.

"Thanks," Lily said with relief, and slumped back against the wall. "You've really improved."

"I had to," James shrugged, and Lily averted her eyes again. "So, a broken rib and ankle… that all?"

"I know, I know," Lily sighed. "I'm a walking disaster these days."

"Are you joking?" James asked. "Lily, you took on ten Death Eaters and came out of it practically unscathed! And you saved about fifty lives in the process."

Lily blushed lightly. "It wasn't that big of a deal."

James shook his head and sighed. "When they numbers are even we lose fighters every day. You are some fighter."

"Well, I had a lot of practise fighting you," she smiled.

He grinned back.

"James?"

"Yes?"

"You can let go of my leg now."

"Ooops, sorry," James said, but he didn't look very embarrassed. "I'll leave you to rest for a while."

"I'm still waiting for my tea," she reminded him.

"Take this," a woman she had never met before shoved a potion in her face. James nodded in confirmation and Lily smelled it deeply. It smelled like a Sleeping potion, weak but well-brewed. She downed it in one, and fell asleep before she had time to lie down fully.


	5. 5

Lily awoke after only a few hours, tired but unable to sleep further. The corridor was bright and noisy with bustle, so she gave up her cot to a man with an extra limb sticking out of his chest and moved into the front room. The front room was much warmer and though it was busy, it was quieter than the thoroughfare she had slept in. She found a spot on the couch closest to the fire and curled up there. Someone gave her a cup of tea. The quiet mumbles of the voices were incredibly calming, and Lily found herself drifting off again, feeling warm and fuzzy.

She did not know how long she slept, but it must have been a good few hours, for when she awoke the room had emptied almost completely of its previous occupants to be replaced by a new group. Sleepily, she sat up, to see a tired werewolf sitting on the chair opposite her.

"Remus!" she exclaimed loudly, her voice still thick with sleep. She pulled herself up stiffly and hugged him warmly.

"How are you?" Remus smiled kindly at her when she sat back down.

She shrugged. "A bit stiff, but no serious injuries."

"I hear you took on an army on your own," Remus said. There was a teasing element to his voice.

"A wild exaggeration," she protested, and stifled a yawn.

"Knowing you," Remus shook his head, "I sincerely doubt it."

"Are you back for long?" Lily asked.

Remus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "A few weeks, probably."

"Lily." Gideon Prewett approached them. He was sporting a thick green paste on his cheek. "Moody wants you. Debriefing"

*—*

Moody was holding court on the first floor, in a dusty front parlour. When Lily entered, she was struck by the traffic she could hear from Muggle London outside.

She recognised this room, had spent an awkward hour there several years before. She felt old memories washing over her very suddenly: the rigidity of that chair, the loud ticking of the clock in the corner. The crinkle of her crinoline skirt. The stiffness of her smile.

"This woman," Moody barked, and Lily jumped a little in shock. He was pointing directly at her, and the room as one had turned its attention to her. "Held off ten death eaters by herself. Why? Why? Because none of you were doing your job!" He turned his attention and pointed finger to Sirius, who was still pale and a little shaky looking. Lily wondered if Moody had been shouting at him since they returned. "Black slacked off on the job. And the rest of you? Slow, sluggish, useless. If it wasn't for that girl, we would have a mass catastrophe on our hands. No thanks to any of you. WHAT WAS THAT?"

He swivelled towards two Ravenclaws who Lily remembered as being a year below her in Hogwarts. They had been whispering to each other. "Nothing," one of them said, a sulky boy whose hair fell into his eyes in a damp curtain.

"Nothing, eh?" Moody's eye swivelled gently in place, and the Ravenclaw paled slightly. "Do you disagree with me? Were you the first person on the scene? Did you react according to your training?"

"No," the boy said. Lily tried to remember if he was an Abbott or a Merlock. "I was just saying that she's hardly just _some girl_. She's Lily Evans."

"What does that mean?" Moody asked. His voice was quiet and dangerous, and Lily found herself holding her breath.

"She was Head Girl," he said emphatically. "She was top witch in her year, and leader of the Duelling Club. When we were in third year and she was in fifth, she turned Potter into a goat!"

There was a long silence in the wake of this, in which Lily battled a painful flush and tried to avoid eye contact with most of the room.

"Ah, fond memories," James said from his spot in the corner. He stood with his arms folded and his posture relaxed, and there was a general sensation of a whole room unclenching. "You've got it a bit wrong mate. She didn't turn me into a goat; she turned me into an absolute monstrosity."

"You called me a wicked shrew," Lily piped up, feeling like she should defend herself. "And I was trying to turn you into a goat, but then you put shrew into my head and it came out somewhere in the middle. Transfiguration wasn't my best subject."

"See, there you go," James pointed out to the Ravenclaw. "She's not so great, is she?"

"SILENCE!" Moody shouted, and grabbed a hold of Lily's right wrist. He pulled her into the centre of the room and before she had time to react, he had sliced into her wrist with a downward slice of his wand. Lily gaped at him, but was pushed away from Moody by half of the Order, who had stepped in between them protectively.

"Jesus, Moody!" someone, possibly James, shouted.

"Look at this," Moody grabbed Lily' blood forearm and thrust it into the Ravenclaw's face. The boy's face, which had once been pale, was now a fetching shade of puce.

"Is she immortal? Does she not bleed?"

Fabian took her hand from him and began to staunch the blood with a handkerchief stained with motor oil. "There was no need for the visual, Alastor. Some of us have seen quite enough of Lily's insides to last a lifetime."

"Starting tomorrow, we are upping our training. One of our own will NEVER be left alone for that long again!" Moody glared at them all, one by one, and stormed from the room.

"You alright there, Lils?" Fabian asked kindly, running his wand along her arm to stitch up the cut expertly.

"I'm fine," Lily said loudly, at a pitch that probably only dogs could hear. "Not a problem."

"Sorry, Lily," the Ravenclaw was standing in front of her now. He was shaking slightly. "I meant it as a compliment."

Lily shrugged. "Don't worry about it."

"It's not so bad being a goat-shrew, Merlock," James winked at Lily as he clapped the Ravenclaw on the back. "Except for the nervous incontinence. But it fades after a few days."

"I'm not turning anybody into any animals," Lily sighed. She was feeling a little woozy from the shock and blood loss. "We're all on the same side here."

"You alright?" Fabian asked. Lily realised that he was still holding on to her arm.

"Fine," she said, feeling embarrassed, and extricated herself from him. "I just need some air."

She stumbled out of the room and out onto the landing. From there, she knew the only place she wanted to go.

It had taken her too long to realise whose house this was. Why hadn't she considered why there were no residents? Why would a house like this be left empty in the middle of London? It was only when she had seen the front room that everything had come together, and now she needed to see the only room in which she had spent any real time.

Marlene's room was dark and dusty, like the other bedrooms. Lily was glad that although they were pushed for space, they had left the bedrooms untouched out of respect. It had been Marlene's room when she was a child, and the room still showed signs of that in the dusty yellow wallpaper that peeked through the many posters of Wizarding and Muggle rock bands. Lily didn't want to turn on the lights, feeling dizzy enough with the faint outline of moving pictures staring down at her. The shutters on the windows were closed, but she could see enough through the daylight from the hallway. She ran her hands over the dresser, over the hairbrushes and assorted make-up. Marlene had moved out of the family home after school, but she had left a few things behind. Lily found a little picture that they had taken in a Muggle photo booth, her and Mary and Marlene. Marlene had tried to enchant it to move, but she had always been weak at Potions. The characters were only moving jerkily, back and forth, back and forth.

"Lily."

Lily hastily wiped her eyes and turned around to see Sirius Black standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the light behind him.

"If you hate me," Sirius began, approaching her slowly. "I understand completely. I was a fool, a bloody fool!"

"Sirius," Lily interrupted him, her voice watery. "Shut up."

Sirius gaped at her. "Lily, I almost got you killed…"

"You made a mistake," she shrugged. "It worked out alright in the end. I don't want to fight with you. Those people… those people tried to kill me, and those poor defenceless Muggles. Those people killed Marlene!" She smacked the photo strip in her hand. "Marlene's whole family, too. Mary. Yory Sayers. Bridget Montague. They'll kill us too, if we let them get in between us." She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "Shut up worrying, and feeling guilty. I don't care."

Sirius snaked an arm around her waist and clung to her tightly.

"I promise," he said quietly. "I swear to God, Lily. I'll never let them near you."

*—*

Lily hung around the house for the morning. She hadn't been cleared to leave yet, technically still on duty. She had a feeling they were keeping her there to keep an eye on her, which she would have been very offended by if she hadn't felt like hell. Her organs, which had only just settled into place, felt jumbled and her head hurt. She supposed that no magic could really cure the ache in her bones or the taste of bile in her throat. Not as long as she could still remember that little girl being tossed around in the air.

The house was still full of activity, and it appeared that Dumbledore might make an appearance that evening. They were going to have dinner, and the kitchen seemed to be the hotbed of action. Lily hung around in there for a while, trying to help, but in the end she was only getting in the way. Eventually Alice Abbott had kindly steered her into the dining room with a cup of tea in her hands and left her to her own devices. Lily was in no mood for small talk, or reading the newspaper, or listening to the radio, though. She felt restless and out of place.

Eventually she found her way to the courtyard in the middle of the property so that she could get some air.

Out of the sky, out of nowhere, came an almighty crash. When Lily had managed to get back to her feet, she could see through the smoke James Potter tottering unsteadily in front her.

Behind him, sprawled across the cobbles, was Sirius Black. He was accompanied by a large motorbike, sleek black but spitting steam and making a thunderous noise.

"Oh, hello Evans," James said, readjusting his glasses and smiling as if they met like this every day. "How's the recovery?"

"Is that…" Lily began faintly, but her voice faltered. She pointed at the motorcycle with a shaking hand. "Did you?"

"Pretty, isn't she?" Sirius grinned, and stroked the handlebar. "Shame about the landing."

"You'll have to re-calibrate it, mate," James said. "We can't be losing so much power so quickly on the descent."

"I know, I know. I think it's the levitation spell, it's not strong enough."

"NOT STRONG ENOUGH?"

The two men jumped slightly at Lily's thunderous shout. She was loud enough to match the motorcycle in volume.

"NOT BLOODY STRONG ENOUGH? A LEVITATION CHARM ON A MOTORBIKE? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MINDS?"

"Ah, calm down, Evans," James said breezily. "It's just a bit of fun."

"ARE YOU THE WORLD'S BIGGEST IDIOTS?"

"Excuse me?" James bristled.

"A FLYING MOTORCYCLE! IN THE MIDDLE OF LONDON! IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR! WAS A PART OF YOUR BRAIN BLASTED OFF YESTERDAY IN THE FIGHT?"

"Oh calm down," James said, annoyed. "It's not that big of a deal. Isn't that right, Sirius? Sirius?"

Sirius Black had always had a much better preservation instinct than James, especially when it came to Lily. He had instead run into the house to drag Remus out, so that they could witness what was sure to be a cracker of an argument.

"It's been so long," Remus moaned, and followed him happily. Most of the rest of the Order followed them too, eager for some entertainment.

The pair were squared off against one another by now, and were each growing red in the face from shouting.

"THERE ARE MUGGLES HERE. WE ARE TRYING TO HIDE FROM A WAR AND YOU GO BRINGING THIS MONSTROSITY UPON US!"

"WELL IF THEY DIDN'T KNOW WE WERE HERE BEFORE, THEY'LL CERTAINLY KNOW NOW BY YOUR SHRIEKING!"

"SHRIEK? SHRIEK? I DO NOT SHRIEK!"

"THERE ARE HAGS IN THE SEWERS WHO THINK THEY ARE BEING SUMMONED."

"ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US ALL?"

"WE WERE _TRYING_ TO BLOW OFF SOME STEAM."

"OH WELL DONE THEN. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. THERE'S ENOUGH STEAM IN HERE TO FILM A KATE BUSH VIDEO."

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS."

"THAT'S NOT MY FAULT."

"Uh oh," Sirius sighed. "They're running out of argument."

"Run," Remus suggested, but it was too late.

"AND YOU!"

Sirius froze mid-turn at the sound of Lily's voice, or more accurately, the sting of the sparks from her wand as they hit his arm. "Er," he said, hopefully.

"DON'T THINK I'M FINISHED WITH YOU!"

Sirius ran, but she chased after him.

*—*

"So…" Lily began awkwardly, but she wasn't sure how to continue. She had settled herself beside Remus, in an attempt to have their first proper conversation since his return.

"Hullo, Lily," he said kindly, raising his eyes to her from behind his newspaper. "What's the first name of the lead singer of the Pumpkin Pasties?"

"Bertram," she said confidently.

"Are you sure? According to this, it should end with an O."

Lily craned her neck to see his paper, and noticed that he was three-quarters of the way through the Daily Simplex Crossword. "It's either Bertram or Bertlam. Or maybe he's the drummer. It might be Lachlan."

Remus furrowed his eyebrows.

"Are you sure about the O?" she asked.

"Let's see, sixteen down, _Person who can magically navigate through the many layers of a person's mind and correctly interpret the findings_. Occlumens."

"No, that's wrong," Lily pointed out. "It's Legilimens."

"Merlin," Remus sighed, as he crossed out the letters and wrote the correct ones in. "I must have missed Defence against the Dark Arts that day."

"It's not well-known magic," Lily consoled him. "I only learnt about it because Severus read about it and wanted to try it."

"You didn't…"

"No, no," she said quickly. "I thought it would be a good idea to learn Occlumency of course, but it was only fourth year and I didn't think it would be likely that I'd ever be attacked."

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "And of course there was the fact that I was fourteen, and there were thoughts I did not want Sev to invade."

Remus raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Instead he picked up his quill and studied his paper.

"He was very jealous," Lily said, absentmindedly playing with one long curl at the front of her face which had fallen out of her messy bun. "And Maxwell Grant had really sprouted up that summer."

"Maxwell Grant? _Really?_ "

Lily jumped a little, having been absorbed in her memories. "Well I didn't know then, did I?" she said defensively. "I just thought he was older and a bit mysterious. I didn't know he was so dim he regularly got lost on the way to the Hufflepuff Common Room."

"No judgement here," Remus shook his head, but his mouth was tight with a suppressed smile.

Lily harrumphed and spent several minutes in an embarrassed sulk.

Eventually, Remus took pity on her. " _Healing potion with the power to awaken a person from a magically-induced sleep_."

"Wiggenweld," Lily said. "That's an easy one."

"Some of us melted our cauldrons even in seventh year, Lily."

"It was beautiful," Lily reminisced. "It ate right through Potter's shoes."

"You were seeing him at the time," Remus pointed out.

"Doesn't mean he didn't probably deserve it."

" _Surname of celebrated author in the field of plant-related Divination_. I see the two of you are on better terms since last I saw you. "

Lily thought that was a strange comment, considering how one hour previous she had hexed Potter with extremely painful boils on his buttocks. He would not be sitting down for a few hours, at least. Sirius had narrowly avoided losing his hair, but he had saved himself by producing a Shield Charm so effective she was momentarily winded. They pronounced it a tie and she left him alone after that. "Spore or Sapworthy."

"What?"

"Plant-related Divination. It's either Spore or Sapworthy."

"Eight words. Sapworthy it is." He smiled and folded up his paper. "That's them all."

"Listen, Remus," she began. "How have you been?"

"Lily," Remus warned. "I can't speak about my assignment any more that you can."

"I know," she sighed. She was disappointed; she had hoped that he would tell her something, even if it wasn't much. "But how have you _been? Really?_ "

"Well my life isn't quite as exciting as yours," he joked, but her expression caused his smile to falter.

"Remus."

"I'm fine."

"Remus."

"Honestly, Lily. I'm fine."

"Re-"

"Dinner's up!"

He dashed out of the room quicker than she could follow him. By the time she reached the dining room, he was already sitting, flanked by Sirius and James. Lily noticed with some satisfaction that James seemed deeply uncomfortable, regardless of the many cushions heaped on his chair. He towered conspicuously over everyone.

"…don't see why you haven't ended the spell yet," Lily heard Mundungus Fletcher say to Sirius as she took her place further down the table, beside Dorcas.

"It's the honour, Dung," Sirius said, shaking his head. "She hexed him well and he didn't have a shield up even though he knows what she's like- er, I mean," he said, spotting Lily who was calmly unfolding her serviette and placing it on her lap. "He knows the rules of combat. Also, we don't know the counter curse."

"Surely it's a simple reversal of Cragg's Law?" Dorcas asked, but James shook his head sadly. He would have looked like a kicked puppy were he not grimacing so unattractively.

"Ah Lily, let the man out of his misery," Dung implored.

"James, dear, would you like me to end the spell?"

James shook his head viciously. Several people gaped at her.

"There you go," Lily said. "The swelling should go down in the next few hours. Alice, this food looks beautiful."

"Thanks, Lily," Alice said, "Although Dorcas and Saffir did most of it."

"It's good practice, though," Dung said, or at least he tried to say that. He was hampered by the large mouthful of mashed potatoes in his mouth.

"That's disgusting, mate," Sirius said.

Lily had once seen Sirius eat a whole chicken with his bare hands and teeth.

"When _is_ the wedding?" Lily asked Frank, who was sitting across from her and holding hands with Alice.

"We've had to put it off for now," Frank said sadly. "Large gathering of wizards at times like these are historically not the best idea."

"That's doesn't stop you from getting married," Lily pointed out. "Just the wedding."

"We thought about it," Alice said, and Lily noticed Frank pat her hand. "But we'd like it to be a real celebration, you know. We don't mind waiting, anyway."

"Any day now," Fabian Prewett, who was sitting to Lily's right, said brightly. "This sodding war will be over and we'll have plenty to celebrate."

Lily had probably a million counterarguments to that prediction. She wanted to point out that the War would never be over while Muggleborns were still being blamed for stealing magic from Purebloods; that until werewolves were permitted to live without stigma, or until the Prophet stopped censoring their reports of the real happenings in the Ministry, they would never be free. Instead, she smiled, clinked her glass against his, and said "Hear, hear!"

"Are you a bloody impostor?"

Lily had found her way to the courtyard again. It was dark now and though it was hard to tell from the small patch of sky she could see, it seemed quite cloudless. The small courtyard allowed her to shelter from any prying eyes out on the street, an important consideration when you were in a War. She was finishing her second cigarette when James Potter loomed above her, accusing her of being somebody else.

To be honest, she had expected to see him sooner.

"Excuse me?"

"'Hear, hear'? ' _Hear bloody hear_ '?"

"What? I can't be optimistic?"

"It's not nearly over. It may never be over. Until Moony can walk into the Ministry and say, ' _Hi, I'm a sodding great werewolf, please give me a job_ ,' and they actually do…"

"Merlin's sake, Potter, sit down. You're making me nervous. Of course I know that. But it was hardly the time to say that, was it? Poor Alice and Frank, trying to get married, and you want me to tell them it'll never be the right time?" She stubbed the butt into the ground with her heel. "You need to learn to read the room."

He said nothing, but plonked down beside her. She noticed that he was now able to sit without pain, but thought better than to comment on it.

"Give us one," he nodded at the pack in her hand.

"I thought you quit?" she asked, surprised.

"I thought you did, too," he smiled wryly.

"Fair enough," she said, and gave him one of hers.

She took the time while he was taking his first long drag to study his profile. He had found a razor at some point, and was freshly shaven. His clothes were cleaner and less rumpled than hers, and she presumed he must have been back to his flat to change. He had the same bags under his eyes that she had seen on the rest of the Order, though, and the same drawn expression to boot.

"They're menthols," she told him, although since he was already smoking it, she presumed he probably knew that.

"They'll do," he shrugged, and flicked his ash on the ground. She lit another of her own.

"How's Remus?" she asked. "I haven't much chance to talk to him."

James shrugged, and she noticed a sulkiness in his posture. "Don't bother, he won't tell you anything."

Lily wanted to say a lot of things. For instance, that it was _just_ like him to take the fact that Remus' mission was confidential personally. Or, that there were more important things, like how Remus was actually coping, that she wanted to know. But she didn't say anything, because she had spent the last month of their relationship fighting with him over those same topics, and it still hadn't sunk in. She didn't want to fight.

Almost as if he read her thoughts, James slumped back into the bench and placed his free hand in a fist over his eyes. "I'm so tired of this _fucking_ war, Evans."

"I know," she said quietly.

"We were supposed to _do_ things. I wanted to be an international Quidditch player, and Sirius was going to be a Curse Breaker."

"I wanted to be a Healer," she said to the air.

"You were _supposed_ to be a Healer," he ground out. "Not fighting bloody Death Eaters."

"James," she said quietly, and put her hand on his gently to pry it away from his face. "We promised to fight. Remember what they did to your Mum."

"I remember very well, thank you very much," he said crossly. "That doesn't mean I can't be tired. Besides, it was different, then."

"How?"

"We were idiots," he smiled wryly. "I thought, this'll be great. It'll be the five of us, fighting bad guys together, figuring things out. But the only person I ever see anymore is Sirius, and I have to face day after day of them bastards _winning_."

"They may be winning, but they haven't won."

"Maybe."

They lapsed into silence, a silence in which Lily tried to find ways around the Fidelius Charm in her head.

"I wanted to make a difference," she said slowly, finally.

To his credit, he didn't make any comment.

"Yesterday, I felt alive for the first time. I want to fight, I think."

He nodded in a resigned sort of way. "I thought you'd say that. Moody is already pushing Dumbledore for it, you know.'

She shivered, pulling her jacket closer to her body to draw in some warmth. "What do you think about that?" she asked carefully.

James leaned forward in his seat and tapped his cigarette to release the ash again. He avoided her eyes, hunching his shoulders tensely. She tried to follow his eye line, but it seemed that he was staring into the middle distance.

"I think," he said slowly. "That it is not for me to tell you what to do."

"I didn't mean it like tha-" she began, but James stood up and stubbed his cigarette out quickly, effectively silencing her.

"Just promise me you'll be careful. Don't do anything stupid."

"That goes both ways," she pointed out.

He grimaced and went back inside. He stopped suddenly at the door, however, and turned back to her.

"There's something I need to tell you. Actually Sirius should have told you, but he thought it would be better if I did it. I'm not sure why."

"What?"

"We got some positive identification of some of the Death Eaters yesterday. Bellatrix Black…"

"I could have guessed that one. And her fiancé?"

"Husband," he corrected. "She's Bellatrix Lestrange now. But also…Lily, Caradoc managed to unmask Severus Snape."

Something very cold plunged into Lily's stomach. "Oh," she said, because what else was there to say?

"I'm sorry," he said.

"We always knew…" she tried to shrug but didn't seem to have the energy.

"But we never had proof. I'm sorry."

"You said that," she said distantly.

"It's true. I hated him, but all the same…I'll leave you alone."

"Thanks," Lily said quietly. She heard the door click as he closed the door behind him.

She had known, of course, that he had been preparing to join the Death Eaters even when they were in school. To think of him in a mask torturing Muggles, however, was still a hard concept to grasp. To think that he had even been in the same room as her, for the first time since Hogwarts, was difficult. Had he been one of the one to hurt that little girl, to kill that young man? Had he shot curses at her? Had she fought him? The thought made her sick.

Wearily, she went to fetch Saffir, who was dispensing Dreamless Sleep Potions to those who were still injured.

*—*

The next morning, Dumbledore finally arrived. He wasted no time in sending Lily back to the Ministry, despite Moody's protests.

"I don't understand," Lily told him bluntly. "I can do better work here."

"Trust me," Dumbledore had said, and that was that.


	6. 6

It was hard to go back to her post at the Department of Mysteries after the excitement of the previous few days. Lily expected that she would be happy to be back to a normal routine, but it turned out to be exceedingly dull. Dorcas tended to agree; she seemed to find the Marauders such a breath of fresh air.

"They were only in second year when I was in seventh," Dorcas reminisced fondly over a hastily prepared dinner of potato waffles and baked beans. They were sitting on the couch with their plates on their laps, watching old films on the crackling television. Lily was attempting to explain all of Muggle cinema to Dorcas within ten minutes. They only had a little television which was old and reverted to black and white often, but it was the best they could do.

"After all, I am not going near an actual cinema for a long time," Lily pointed out. "Perhaps never."

"I can't read the subtitles," Dorcas pointed out, squinting at the box. "I have no idea what's happening."

"It's a Western", Lily shrugged. "It's hardly difficult to follow."

"Maybe if you have seen every film in the world before… what does that say? Our daring heroes…?"

"Stop for a refreshing drink in the town's local tavern."

"What are they drinking?"

"Sarsaparilla."

Dorcas shook her head in wonder. "Muggles. Anyway, as I was saying, you lot were only babies when I was finishing school. Those Marauders were only getting started, but you could see they would be devils."

"Devils is an understatement," Lily snorted.

"Is it true you turned Black's teeth rotten with a jinx?"

"Where did you hear that?" Lily asked, astounded. Dorcas shrugged, hiding a sly smile. "Well, they weren't rotten," Lily said haughtily. "Just a little _black_."

"Lily!" Dorcas covered her mouth to hide her hearty laugh. "That's terrible!"

"In my defence, he had told me I was a scrawny ginger know-it-all. I was only twelve, how was I supposed to react?"

"Most girls cry in the bathroom."

"Why? So Moaning Myrtle could tell everyone? No, thank you. I'd rather get docked a few house points."

They were quiet for a few moments, watching the shootout on the telly and picking at their waffles.

"It must be strange," Dorcas said after a few minutes. "To have been so close to…well, all of them really. And not be anymore."

Lily shrugged. She knew that Dorcas had broached the subject because Lily's whole posture had begun to sink over the past few minutes. She had hated those boys so much, once upon a time. And then she had loved them, and what now? She couldn't hate Sirius, Peter or Remus just because she had broken up with James, but how should she act? And more importantly, how was she supposed to feel?

Finding herself unable to vocalise these thoughts, she settled for nodding sadly.

"It must be even stranger," Dorcas said tentatively, "to be around your ex-boyfriend so much."

Lily nodded again. Her lip wobbled ever so slightly.

Taking pity on her, Dorcas said nothing else on the subject, instead pointing out the logistical difficulties in lassoing a man from a galloping horse.

_Seventh year would have killed her, Lily freely admitted. One tiny extra responsibility on top of her already tottering pile of Head Duties, homework, NEWTs study, tutoring and generally living and participating in the dramas of being seventeen would have sent the whole thing crashing into pieces. She was run ragged, this particular Thursday night._

_The night before, Mary MacDonald had discovered what had apparently been a badly kept secret among the students of Hogwarts - that her boyfriend, one Marcus Abrams, had been secretly frequenting the Charms classroom with Corinne Lysander._

_This had, of course, led to many hours of crying and eating chocolate (procured by Sirius Black, who was in the business of procuring items for those in need - for a small fee, of course) in the Gryffindor Seventh Year girls dormitories. Lily had not slept but three hours when she was awoken by her alarm for class. Mary had not made it down to class at all, poor dear, for though it had been unanimously agreed that Marcus Abrams was a blundering buffoon with the largest forehead in Hogwarts, she really had been very fond of him._

_In between classes, in which she accrued another 4 feet of essays to complete on top of her already lengthy assignments, Lily spent her day in the library, trying to finish a Potions essay and practise turning her hands pink at the same time._

_She skipped dinner, feeling ill from the quantity of chocolate consumed the previous night, and headed instead down to the poky little office on the second floor that served as the operation office for Prefects. There were two desks set up in the office and a wall of shelves, but that was about all they had room for._

_Lily had expected to find the room empty; instead she found a harried James Potter labouring over his desk._

_"Oh, hello," she said, and glanced over his shoulder. "Potions essay?"_

_He did not answer her, and unperturbed, she dumped her bag on her table and began reading several messages in their post box._

_"'Lo," James said finally, faintly, and Lily smiled._

_James Potter was a typical man, in the sense that his ability to multi-task was sorely limited. He could not talk and write a Potions essay at the same time any more than he could stand on his head and turn blue in unison. It was to be expected that his responses would be delayed at the very least, and perfunctory at worst._

_"Two more letters from Filch," Lily read out. "Asking us to be vigilant of use of those new biting teacups among the student population. I'm paraphrasing, of course. I've seen better-constructed ransom notes."_

_She pulled out a new quill and ink pot and began working on the patrol schedules for the coming month._

_"They've been out of fashion for years," James said tersely. "It's those new Exploding Stinkbombs we need to watch out for."_

_"It's a good thing we have a bona fide prankster on our side, isn't it?" She glanced over to him, and laughed inwardly. A few years ago, she would have paid to see James Potter looking stressed. Now, it was becoming almost a normal occurrence. He had obviously been here for some time, judging by the ink stains on the cuffs of his shirt and the wildness of his hair. "What's that on the floor? Quidditch gear?"_

_"Hmmm?" James asked, consulting his_ _Antydotes for Amazonian Poisons_ _book with a furrowed brow. "Oh, yes. Quidditch… practice…later."_

_Lily thought privately that if she had to add a responsibility like Quidditch Captain on top of her current duties she would soon be found naked in the Astonomy Tower, covered in jam and raving about Services to the School. She declined to say anything, fearing that she might have to engage in a lengthy and passionate discussion about the wonderful qualities of Quidditch if she did._

_A tap on the door interrupted their work._

_Lily didn't bother to wait for the knock to penetrate James' consciousness. Instead she swung out of her chair, tripping gracelessly over James' Quidditch gear and swearing loudly._

_"I don't think the Prefect's Office is the right place for your gear, do you?" She swung the door open. "Oh, hello Greenlaw."_

_Claribel Greenlaw had really filled out over the summer. This was Lily's first thought, as it was every time she had seen the fifth year since school began in September. She was so busy thinking this, in fact, that she almost missed the shock and dismay that flitted across Claribel's face._

_"Lily, you're here!" she exclaimed, and blushed. "Er, I mean… I thought I saw you in the library earlier."_

_"I was in the library," Lily said. "Now I'm here." She felt strangely awkward. "Can I help you?"_

_"Er…yes," Claribel said, stepping into the office. "Hello, James."_

_"'Lo," James said distantly. The scratching of his quill on parchment did not cease._

_"I was wondering if I could change my patrol on Saturday," Claribel said loudly, and blushed deeper._

_"That's the second time in a row," Lily admonished her. "Is it because it's a Hogsmeade weekend?"_

_Claribel had the sense to look properly ashamed._

_"I'll do it," James said, causing the two girls to look over to him in shock._

_"You don't have to," Claribel said quickly, causing Lily to raise an eyebrow. She noticed that Claribel was wearing quite a bit of eyeshadow._

_"It's no problem," James said, and returned to his work._

_"Well, that's settled then," Lily said, ushering the despondent-looking girl out of the room gently. "You can go to Hogsmeade. But you have to patrol Halloween to make up for it. Have fun!"_

_She closed the door beside her and sighed._

_"You think she'd have been a bit more thankful," James remarked from behind her._

_"You're an idiot," Lily told him._

_"Why?" James asked, looking confused. He pushed the books away from him and ruffled his hand through his hair._

_"She thought you might ask her out," Lily said, feeling distinctly like she was explaining Advanced Transfiguration to a five-year old. "She thought you'd be here alone and you'd let her swap and then invite her to go with you. Didn't you see how fluffy she was wearing her hair?"_

_"But she's a fifth year," James said, looking genuinely perplexed. "We've barely spoken. Since when does fluffy hair indicate romantic intention?"_

_"It's not just the hair," Lily said. "It's the eyelash fluttering and glossy lips as well. Didn't you notice?"_

_"I didn't even look at her!"_

_"The poor girl. She probably spent a good hour getting ready, you know. And then she comes down here all alone to seduce you."_

_"Oh, come on!"_

_"You missed out on a date and now you have to patrol on Saturday. Not your smoothest move, Potter."_

_"Nah," James said easily, and Lily felt a tiny little swoop in her gut, as if her stomach had dropped down into her legs rapidly. How could he have found a date, on top of everything else he had going on?_

_"Oh?"_

_"Remus will patrol, he owes me a million anyway."_

_"Oh." Slowly her stomach found it's way back into place. "Good."_

_James looked at his watch, a beautiful model he received from his parents for his seventeenth birthday. "Quidditch calls. I'll help you with those schedules later, yeah?"_

_He swung out from under the desk and began gathering his things. Lily waved him off, insisting that she was nearly finished._

_In truth, it would probably take her a few more hours to finish, but that was only because of James Potter. When they worked together, which seemed to be all the time recently, she was easily distracted by his presence. And when he was not there, she wasted minute after minute wondering why he affected her like that. Frankly she wondered how she had gotten anything done the past couple of weeks, and yet she couldn't bring herself to be annoyed about it._

_"Evans!"_

_Lily jumped in her seat. "Merlin, Potter, my heart!"_

_James had appeared back at the door, holding his Quidditch kit and books in a jumble in his arms. His hair was wild from running his hands through it in frustration over his essay. He looked like a man who had left his wits behind him in the room and had come back to collect them._

_"I hear there's a Hogsmeade weekend coming up."_

_"You mean the one you helped to plan?"_

_"Yes, that one. Will you go with me?"_

_Lily felt herself blush hotly and her heart started to beat wildly against her chest._

_"Alright, then."_

_"Good," he said, and grinned at her, if a little nervously. She matched his grin easily. "See you later."_

_He disappeared again and Lily went back to her schedules. When she returned to Gryffindor Tower several hours later, there was still a faint tint to her cheeks._

Lily was glad to receive an owl from Remus the next day, asking to meet for a drink. It made up for her frustration when more Time Turners started turning up out of nowhere, obliterating her count for the day before.

Remus had told her he would meet her in the corridor outside the Department, the one that led out to the Atrium, and so she took a different route than her usual. She passed the brewing room, glancing in to wave at some colleagues who were not paying any attention to her. Bracing herself, she took the Love Room at a bit of a sprint, attempting to lessen the time she spent under its power. She burst out of the main door, to find Remus leaning against a wall and watching her with some surprise.

Gasping, she leaned against the wall beside him, drained and faintly nauseous.

"Are you alright?" Remus asked her, worried.

She nodded, but before she could reassure him verbally, a middle-aged man stumbled through the door. He put a hand to the wall and wiped his brow with a shaky hand, before lurching out towards the Atrium.

"It affects everyone differently," Lily panted. "Got any chocolate?"

Remus rooted around in his pockets until he produced four squares of Honeydukes' finest. Lily accepted the chocolate gratefully, still finding it hard to catch her breath.

"What is it? Can you say?" he asked.

"True Love Room," Lily said. The Room was one of the few well-known artifacts of the Department of Mysteries, and she was able to explain it to him. "They keep it locked all the time, but it's still very strong. Fills you up on the way in, but leaving it drains you pretty bad. Well, me, anyway."

Remus looked at the door thoughtfully. "Have you told Dumbledore about this?" he asked her seriously.

"Why?" she asked, surprised. "Everyone knows about the room."

"But the room is just there," he pointed. "Leading to this corridor. Which is hidden from view."

Lily stared at him blankly.

"Lily," Remus sighed, exasperated. "You are a sitting duck to a Death Eater at the moment."

"Oh, oh," Lily said. "I see. You're right."

"Promise you'll tell Dumbledore right away?"

"Cross my heart," Lily promised, holding up her crossed fingers.

"Alright then, are you ready for a drink?"

"Ready? I'm parched!"

They both ordered butterbeers (too jumpy, perhaps, after their conversation about ambushes, to drink anything stronger). The Leaky Cauldron was probably at its busiest in the post-work glow of six pm, but it was still muted and gloomy. The number of patrons was nothing close to several years ago, when the place would have been bursting with life. They sat at a rickety round table in the back, to avoid anyone hearing, although they needn't have worried. Most of the patrons had already secluded themselves in the shadowy corners of the bar to talk quietly and privately.

Lily could not remember exactly when she had started to receive stares in the Wizarding World. Perhaps they had always been there, but she didn't think so. The question of blood status had gained more and more momentum over the past few years, really building up steam from fourth year and still growing. People who never would have dreamed of judging her for being a Muggleborn began to avoid her eyes as they passed her on the street. Those who had originally scorned her had resorted to spitting insults and curses at her.

Diagon Alley was considered a dangerous destination these days. If people went, they did so in quiet, huddled groups. They did not linger in areas like the Leaky Cauldron to chat.

"Bit gloomy in here," Remus remarked, glancing at the room. He had deep circles under his eyes, and Lily wondered how long it had been since the last full moon, remembering that once upon a time she would have known. She used to keep track.

As it was with many of her encounters these days, Lily found herself frustrated. Remus could not discuss the past several months of his life, and neither could she. Instead they say, making awkward conversation about Petunia's wedding (to which Lily had not been invited but had gone anyway, and spied from the bushes). Remus told her about living with James, but seemed uncomfortable speaking about James in too much detail.

Lily left feeling like she had spoken with a stranger, whom she had never known intimately. The gloomy feeling in the pit of her stomach remained all day and most of the next day, and was only forgotten when Dumbledore summoned her in response to her owl.

Lily did not dread the Order Meetings as much any more. She had Dorcas to sit with, and was almost used to being in the same room as James Potter without feeling overwhelmed by his presence. When she thought about it, really thought about it, she couldn't remember a time that James Potter had been in a room and she hadn't known. She was like a radio signal, constantly attuned to his presence.

She was dreading her meeting with Dumbledore, and it turned out to be pretty painful. Not that Dumbledore was cruel to her, but she was so embarrassed that she had missed such an obvious security flaw. She did not argue when he issued an Order member to guard the door at certain times of the day when they would be coming and going, and she resolved to pay much closer attention to the Department and identify any other vulnerabilities.

"Are you enjoying your brewing?" Dumbledore had asked, and it was with a strange bubbling of shame that Lily had shook her head and explained to him that she was no longer permitted to brew Amortentia.

"It is a powerful potion," Dumbledore said kindly, "they do not allow brewing for long periods."

But Lily did not feel any less incompetent, particularly after she had spent her Friday dusting the prophecies and sweeping the Death Chamber.

The Order meeting began with a long-winded and dull report by Sturgis Podmore about the movements of the Secretary for the Minister of Magic. The Order was concerned about the possible use of the Imperius Curse on the Minister's entourage since the old Minister was murdered in her bed. By the time Sturgis Podmore had finished listing the daily movements of the Secretary, Lily could say quite certainly that he was not under the Imperius Curse, but that he needed to incorporate more fibre in his diet and perhaps cut down on the whiskey in the evenings. To her horror, Sturgis then proceeded onto the minutia of the life of the Minister for Magical Games and Sports.

The room was too small for so many gathered. They were seated in rows of spindly chairs, conjured inexpertly by someone with poor-to-average skills in Transfiguration. It reminded Lily of a schoolroom, and this was further emphasised when she craned her neck to the right and saw Sirius Black slumped lazily in his seat, picking at his nails. She fanned herself impatiently, feeling altogether too warm in this stuffy environment.

"Oh, come on," the wizard beside her whispered to himself. On her other side, Dorcas awkwardly shifted in her seat. Lily felt her eyes slowly closing in the warmth of the room. She blinked once, then twice, and suddenly there was movement all around her. The meeting was over, and around her she could hear the scuffing of chairs against carpet and the rustling of movement.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," Dorcas grinned at her.

"Was I asleep?" Lily asked, surreptitiously trying to stretch out her cramped limbs

"Only for a minute," Dorcas reassured her. "Now let's get out of here."

They moved to the end of their row and waited to join the long queue of people leaving. Bringing up the end of the line were James and Peter, but Lily knew that already. She had known, of course, that James was sitting two rows and two seats ahead of her, across the aisle. She knew that his chin was sporting a light stubble again, that he had sat through the meeting looking relaxed and casual to anyone who did not know him well. She knew that he was sporting yet another bruise on his left eye. None of this she would admit to him or anyone else, but watching James Potter had been a skill she cultivated a long time ago, and she was damn good at hiding it.

Still, she had not meant to suddenly hold out an arm to block his passage, and point her wand at him. He opened his mouth in surprise, not at her presence, for James Potter had been watching Lily Evans for far more years than she had watched him, but at her sudden action. Before he had a chance to say anything, though, she reached up and tapped his cheekbone. Swiftly, his bruise faded into his skin, until his skin was blemish free.

"You look atrocious," she informed him, and pulled her hand back. He smiled and touched his eye gently, and walked past her.

Peter scurried behind him, shooting Lily a mildly terrified glance as though she might pull out her wand at him as well.

"Come on, then," Dorcas said behind her, and Lily could feel her rolling her eyes, though she was standing behind Lily and Lily could have no way of knowing for sure. "I found a shop down the road that has _loads_ of Westerns."


End file.
